


Dead Girl Walking

by Nonja24



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Multi, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-05-06 03:49:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 46,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14633487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nonja24/pseuds/Nonja24
Summary: Rick Grimes, a former Sheriff's deputy who was shot in the line of duty, has woken from a coma in a world that is not his own and he is alone - at least until he accidentally stumbles across amnesic survivor, Cathrine Calkins and her canine companion, Rudolph. When more questions arise than answers, Rick's only chance to survive is to trust the pair who know only too well that monsters lurk beyond the walls of Harrison Memorial Hospital.When the unlikely pair start their journey, they come across a group of survivors in dead-torn Atlanta City and suddenly, both are thrown into a world of challenges that will test their very will to live and not all will survive. The growing pressures to stay safe and alive begins to unravel the darkest depths of human cruelty within some; they will discover that the overwhelming fear of the dead is nothing compared to that of the living.In order to protect their families, Rick and Cathrine must put the priorities of the survivors first, but when the world has been overrun by the dead, is there anywhere safe for them or will something else kill them first?





	1. Someone Alive

_original posting date:_ 20.11.2012

 **Chapter One**  |  _Someone Alive_

 Rick wasn't sure what he was looking at to begin with: unconscious civilian ... perhaps she was dead because she didn't move. Although that was unclear to him in his haze, he knew deep down that was her resting position, that was the last place her body would ever be and he didn't understand why. 

 The lights wouldn't stay on long enough to let him know; she wasn't responding to his soft rapping on the door. His entire body ached, even standing there - still as a statue ached him to the core. The haze from the state he had woken up in still adorned him with a weariness he wasn't ready to let go off just yet. 

 The electrical lights above were buzzing, that's what drew him in like a fly. The entire hospital floor was completely darkened out, save for this one little passage way that seemed to have a faulty system. The back up generator perhaps was only running just enough to provide such ditzy lighting for him, perhaps it wanted him to see the horrors only briefly. 

 The hallway looked promising for life, maybe he could find it down there. Down through the empty way, past the body on the floor. It was just that body ... unmoving. Someone had to be alive here, someone had to have done that to her. As he pressed up a little more against the door, resting his hand against the window to support his weight, Rick finally saw the extent of his awoken nightmare, vision clearing now. 

 It wasn't just the hospital, now it was corpses: the woman was  _dead_.

 Something he could never think he would have to see, even now that he found himself awakened in an abandoned hospital, vague memories of what had happened to him; his earliest of his best friend coming in to talk to him, giving him some stupid flowers that had wilted. His family wanted him to awake, but not to this. Not to some corpse down a shadowed hallway, left alone in a building that looked as if it had been at war.

 A body. That's what it was all back down too. Something that wasn't even a body any more, just the remains of a human being who had been knocked down, pinned and ... A knot formed in his stomach at the thought of what could have happened to her. He felt himself wavering forward somehow, surprised when the doors didn't open to his faint weight against them, even as he pushed a little more to inspect why.

 Going  _in_ however was a completely different matter. As his blues focused now, envisioned on that corpse just ahead of him revealed something from a horror movie. The state of it underneath the blinking lights. Seconds ticked by and he remained still at the doors, just looking at this body. He had seen so many before, but not like this. Going into that hallway, even if the blockade wasn't there, part of he knew he wouldn't chance it.

 The hospital was a mess, the type of mess as if it had been abandoned, as if youths had come in and pulled everything apart. He knew exploring would only turn up the ache in his body and only a mirror image of what he was seeing now. Destruction, death ...  _confusion_. He felt light-headed with the thoughts of what else he could find if he left right now, if he could tear his eyes away from the corpse just ahead and move on.

 The ceiling was yanked down in some areas as if rippled apart after an Earthquake. Papers thrown everywhere, a discarded bed mat just past the corpse. Everybody had been in a hurry to leave, others had been forgotten about, leaving him to wake confused - to find the aftermath ... this body -  _if_ it could even be called that any more.

 The horrific state just there, just out of reach set his heart racing, punching his aching chest, screaming danger. A cops instincts that this wasn't some hoax, the type of rush one would get when having a nightmare - that urge to run.

 Fingers spread somewhat over the window, blues hesitant to look away, some illogical part of his mind believing the woman would get up, that she was all right. How was that even possible? Could he not function with what he was seeing? The body was just the remains of a blond woman who had been left in the decayed hospital, flesh stripped from her very bones. She had nothing holding in her organs - it was all  _gone._

 Something had ripped at her flesh, torn it clear from her skin and her blood had stained the floor. She died there, right there and nobody had helped her. That  _something_ left her with nothing of a human form. Entrails of organs were left rotting on the floor, the spine barely holding her body together. 

 The only thing still intact was her face. Even then, looking that little bit more closely, he could see the attempted removal of her ears; flesh torn at the scalp to bloody her matted hair. The rubbery look of her flesh that flexed around her skull indicated she had possibly been dead a week, but even Rick knew a death like that was slow. 

 Disgusting. Her muscles were just missing, barely any  _meat_ left on her form, barely anything and she lay there, staring off into space - rotting and disfigured as if just asking for help. Help to save her life and something had done that to the woman, it had ripped her, stripped her ... killed her.

 Rick felt a repulsed sensation build up his throat, bile desperate to spew from his lips. What the fuck was going on? He couldn't look at her any more, couldn't find it in him to stare at her for a second longer to burn that image into his mind. Whoever she had been, she didn't deserve that death. He pushed himself away from the window as fast as he possibly could, the back of his mouth now tasting sour, foul while he turned to cough up what water he had swallowed earlier.

 It was just as he stumbled towards the wall, body snapped back to the reality of his situation, the danger he was in, something clicked against the slabbed floor beside him. The noise was a warning to him; another life form in the abandoned hospital - possibly the being that had murdered the poor soul beyond the door.

 _Cling, cling ..._ pattering against the ground as it came up beside him. Rick froze. He didn't do anything else, he just froze. Breath held, body suddenly stiff as whatever lurked nearby through the shadows of the hallway growled at him. A deep throat growl that forced his weak little heart to punch at his chest; even the adrenaline rush was not enough to make him move. 

 It was animal, dog perhaps - he couldn't turn his head to have a look. He didn't dare in case such an action would provoke the animal. Slowly, he figured it would be best to have a look at what creature would be tearing into him, Rick turned as to not provoke the creature to attack him. 

 The snarling animal stood poised, ready for the pounce if he proved to be a threat; any wrong movement would be the end of him - anything that seemed challenging to the creature. A beast of a thing with it's shoulders dug low, lips drawn back to reveal almost pearl-whites.

 Stumbling, however out of shock, Rick lost his footing as he caught his legs in a tangle, both far too stiff to make the necessary move to keep himself at a distance from the creature. As his terrified gaze stayed on the animal, its bulk of a figure looking a little larger in the darkness, almost melting as it were into the shadows that seemed to advance on him with the creature. He panicked, terrified of what to do.

 Back hitting the sturdy doors, Rick tried to clumsily grab onto something to help him stay standing, but there was nothing he could do. The beast growled at him immediately, trotting forward with it's front lowered down, body poised and wriggling, preparing to attack and then it barked at him. 

 A  _bark_ meant a dog and a dog meant something that could have easily shredded the woman in the hallway behind him of her flesh, her skin ... her life. The black mane as it were ruffled with every step it took towards the patient, the rest of the large body shuffling forward just that little bit more into what little light spewed from the door windows.

 A golden underbelly almost flat against the floor, it's poise no longer dangerous-looking, merely crawling to get closer, to pounce on it's powerful back legs only if it had too. Rick couldn't tell if it was trying to come near to play with him or readying an attack, but as he looked up, noticed the ears were perked up and eyes were watching him, he made no sudden movements.

 It looked as if it was waiting for that perfect opportune moment to jump at his jugular, to rip into his throat as a mere act of territorial behaviour. He could feel himself shut down once again, fear ploughing through him.

 Watching the dog advance once again, despite his stillness, Rick held back a whimper. He was far too weak to batter it back in warning, to make himself look like a threat. Viciously, a snarl came at him and he could only guess he was either in territory or something about him had the creature spooked and the dog was trying to make sure he wasn't a threat.

 The beast looked matted, ears were bent low, claws out in front to brace against the slippery panels if it decided to charge. It was the lips that were drawn back that told him the dog was still trying to figure it out. He could feel his heart racing in his chest, warning him. The second the dog would make a dash for him, he'd have to put everything into his leaden legs and run - just run even if it was simple to rely on no sudden movements.

 As quietly as he could, Rick fought every urge to stay still. This thing, despite looking like a small bear, was still a dog and playing dead wasn't going to help him. He shuffled up slightly, hearing the door rattle as his back used it to brace the shift. He cursed instantly as the dog advanced on him a couple of steps, the growl rumbling from the back of it's throat, clearly not liking the movement. It was better he just stay still until it'd figured out what it was going to do with him.

 It was his first and  _only_  warning.

 The next one would come packed with teeth, a warning snap around the flesh. Rick stilled on the ground and stared, trembling. Would this go for the rest of the day? A game of cat and cornered mouse. Blue hues shifted past the beast before him down the hallway, only for a moment wondering if there was another dog nearby or whether it was a bitch protecting some pups. He had still animals act far worse in territorial grounds to protect their young.

 Holding still, his neck stiff, breathing ragged as the female barrelled just that little bit closer, now only inches away from him, he could only withdraw as solidly as possible against the door. Her breath was revolting, stale ... like she'd eaten something dead and rotten. Now with a closer view of her, he could see she was indeed a female, even beneath all her fur and big brown eyes observed him very closely.

 Despite the vicious behaviour, her eyes were outlined by golden semi-moon shapes, giving her the appearance of eyebrows on her dark brown - almost black fur. She bore the beautiful colours [had she been washed that is] of a dog he had never seen before. It was certainly not a local species. 

 By the state of her matted, darkened fur, the stench of her alone, this hospital wasn't the only place she had been prowling upon. Her size and height were being used to her advantage to come across as the threatening power here, which meant she was protecting something - he just didn't know what.

 It was then over. As if someone had snapped their fingers and ordered her down, the dog gave what seemed to be a playful whine and turned her head curiously to one side. Her large ass hit the floor and her head fell to one side, groaning at him in such a confused manner that Rick couldn't help but frown at her.

 Everything frightening about her had disappeared, she suddenly looked like the playful house pet one would wrestle with, her bushy tail wagging furiously behind her. Suddenly innocent, upper pearls now concealed behind a line of brown while a long pink tongue hung from her mouth, panting as if she had just been on a run. A large paw padded the ground, waiting for some form of attention, maybe some words or something since he no longer appeared to be a threat.

 "Hey," he said shakily, raising his hand to wave at the creature, just a mere arms length from him now. 

She instantly pulled back from him, shoulders dipped and ears perked. 

 "I'm n-not going to hurt you -" A bark silenced him and he jerked hard against the doors with a little tremor. "Okay, okay ...!"

 Curiously, that growl died away again and she returned to watching him, as if he was nothing more than a spectacle to gawk at for the time being. Rick couldn't help but hold up both hands in surrender, to show that he meant her no harm to her and whoever she was protecting. He was just about as confused as the dog was and although that thought stayed with him, a sharp pain drove up through his legs and into his just, curling him over in pain in seconds.

 A whimper faltered between his pursed lips, arms braced around his gut and chest as if the cuddle would help ease the pain. He had been sleeping for far too long, his body was still growing use to the stale air and dehydration, perhaps even hunger. He didn't know. Everything felt painful and with no help around to tell him what was wrong, he could only self-diagnose his rebelling body. 

 All he could tell himself was that he needed to move - now. With a much needed grunt of agony, Rick attempted to push himself to his feet. Tearing his hands away from either side of his rib cage, he braced them against the dusty floor in an attempt to push himself up. 

 It took him a second to get the correct position, that of which numbed what pain he did feel until he went for the stand. His bones rebelled, his hips suddenly cried out in agony and the sharp pain he felt up his back only crippled him back to his hands and knees again.

 The animal watched from her perch nearby, her tail still and big browns watching his every movement in what could only be registered as confusion. The being wasn't capable of straightening himself up. With a small whine, the beast shuffled back onto all fours and gently shifted towards the man, sensing that instant panic within him as she came closer.

 A disapproving growl rumbled from her throat, now walking to his side where she brushed her body up against him, dipping just low enough to offer that small amount of support he required to get himself up. Rick stared at the creature beside him, easily standing as tall as his thighs while on all fours. Her barrel body gave her the strength to guide him too his feet if he accepted the help.

 Position of a runner taken once again, he braced a hand against her shoulders, just between the blades with his fingers curled around the matted fur. He took note as to how it felt - somewhat tendered too, as if she had recently come from a grooming parlour. She made no noise of discomfort as he pushed himself against her taking the seconds calmly until his body was used to straightening up once again.

 When he finally had, he parted from her fur and braced a arm against the wall in order to contain the want to throw up. His stomach couldn't contain the urge and once again, a small splatter of what little was inside made it outside again, leaving him to wretch and cough into his arm while beside him, the beast sat somewhat proudly but as if prepared to bound away from him if she had too.

 A monster of a dog, he realised, yet pampered and looked after. She didn't look as if she struggled for food and despite the muck on her and the initial approach, she was  _harmless._ Supporting himself now, Rick glanced down to the creature whose ears were now once again perked up and searching either hallway for any extra company, as if guarding him. 

 He had a small weak spot for dogs, ever since he had been a little boy, but never had he had one her size, her built; still she was beautiful and he knew she belonged to someone. Replaced now with his own curiosity, Rick wondered how she had even made it in the hospital, why she was here when nobody else appeared to be alive. 

 It was just him and the corpse until she showed up. Edgily, he reached down a hand towards her head and found it rather stunning that she allowed the contact of his dirty digits to scratch behind the ears to which she seemed to thoroughly enough as she leaned her head in for the contact.

 It lasted only a second.

 Suddenly, her head snapped off up the hallway she trotted down, attention snapped away clearly by something only she could hear. She seemed almost disgruntled to leave his side, a slow waddle away from him that parted man and beast from each others company. Rick's focus was now solely on her, as if he had nothing better to do than watch her trot away, curious to see where she was going.

 Fur bouncing as she trotted along towards the darkened end of the hallway, growling under her breath at every moving shadow, she seemed a little cautious again ... until she paused, turned and looked back at him to see why he wasn't following her. A short bark left her lips, as if ordering him to follow, tail brushing from side to side once again. Big browns watched the startled human stand there, merely staying still.

 "What?" he rasped towards her.

 It was a stupid question, but she seemed to respond with a slight unimpressed snort before bouncing off up the hallway once more, leaving him momentarily on his own after she disappeared around the corner ahead.  

 "... Wait!"

 There was a growl from around the corner, forcing Rick to take his steps slowly, but quickly and each step was more painful than the last. He felt as if he hadn't walked for a century, even longer knowing the possibility that having his body been shut down for so long, organs and muscle had all but deteriorated a little. 

 Hungry and weak, he could do nothing else but follow out of human curiosity for why the beast had suddenly the urge to leave his side. She appeared at the end of the hallway again, dancing almost into sights. Each step towards her was a possibility of survival ... or death, not that he could do much about anything unless the dog was leading him miraculously to water.

 There she was, head turned around the corner, waiting for him to catch up. As if telling him to hurry up before the thing that had killed that woman behind him caught up. Rick didn't know where she was leading him, but something had her riled and distracted. An officer of the law he was, but the thought of becoming like that carcass behind him edged his nerves.

 It was a new one the officer had never seen before on his many years of the job. Rick wanted to find his own way, he had an feeling that it might suit him better if he made his way on his own, but his condition led him to play follow the leader with a dog.

 Some part of Rick's deeper consciousness was hoping that wherever the dog was leading him, it was possibly towards someone alive. Someone that could help him and tell him why on Earth his hospital was abandoned, like he had been teleported into some sort of dystopian world. He had a family, he  _had_ people to get back too. 

 If he had truly woken in  _this_ , what was the rest of the world going to look like?

 Reaching the corner, he saw the collarless dog waiting patiently in the middle of the hallway. There were no dead bodies lying up the way like behind him, which he was thankful for; his stomach couldn't handle another repeat of what he had just seen, not yet. It was as he came into the way of the hallway and looked down the dark tunnel that he noticed the new pain splattered on the walls and floor.

 Stumbling to a stop, he leaned heavily against the wall, knocked by by the stench more than the sight of it all. Red paint plastered on the floor, sprayed along the walls just ahead of him and he reached from the stale taste of irony-copper in the air that what he was seeing was blood. Dried blood just painting the destruction before him. He wondered how much had come from one person, how many people had been slain here ... and where their bodies now were.

 Whatever had happened, Rick felt sick to his stomach with the realisation that he hadn't been awake to see this madness. Part of him was glad for that, part of him was happy that he missed it all because even picturing what happened down the hallway had him bothered. His family were out there, somewhere amongst this chaos and even though the hospital was abandoned, perhaps there was a chance they were out there, looking for him.

 A sharp, quiet bark from the dog now down the other end of the hallway alerted him to her patience in waiting for him and it was beginning to wear thin. She seemed on edge. Rick looked at her breathlessly, sucking in the mouldy air through his mouth, breathing through his nose to avoid what little of the stench he could, but it wasn't working. 

 The blood coating the walls and floors had all but staled enough to pollute the oxygen in the air, it was  _all_ he was going to be breathing. Eyes watering from both smell and sight, he shifted uncomfortably down the hall, while her nose turned in the direction of interest just out of sights. Rick followed until he met her hind legs, finding that just around the corner was a bed pressed up against the door of a room _._

 It appeared as if it had bounced from the wall in the futile attempt to blockade the room, yet the set up was awfully familiar. His own had been barricaded like that, making his stumble into the bed rather a shock when he opened up his door to explore past the four walls of his room. 

 Standing a little to one edge, he shifted a little closer, enough to see that the door was just partially open and light shone through the small crack. Hope filled him. It washed through him like some new-found cure, fighting away what deflation he had felt for the last few minutes of his stumble through the thickness of death that surrounded him; a hope that could lead to something false. 

 If someone was truly behind that door, they could be here in belief they were alone, yet the barricade gave him the benefit of the doubt. They could be friendly, they could be people ... they could have answers.

 The dog glanced up at him and seemed to almost snort and nod at the same time, as if already affirming his suspicions that there was, indeed, a fully-fleshed, living human lying in wait beyond that door and whoever they were, they were just waiting for him to show his miserable face. He probably looked a mess and here was a dog, guiding him the way towards someone who could potentially help him ... or leave him with a short awakening.

 The beast glanced away from her new found toy and trotted up to the room, worming her way around the frame of the bed before entering the room without a certain hint of caution. A friend most likely, but Rick didn't care  _who_ they were to the animal. Someone was breathing beyond the wall and he stumbled helplessly up the corridor to find out exactly who was there - who and why and if they could help him.

 Something stopped him.

 He could hear a voice from the room: weak, tentative and female.

 It was just as he reached the room that he heard the dog growl and froze, the sudden hope he had now replaced by a fear. Unwelcomed it would seem, he stood there, just at the edge of the bed and waited in desperation, bouncing from one foot to the other like an impatient child waiting for permission to open their Christmas presents early in the morning.

 "Who is it?" 

 The human on the other side sounded weary, although it was clear that she wasn't talking to anybody behind the door, but the dog. 

  "Did you find someone?"

 A bark left the room in silence seconds later. A clear agreement that just beyond the point of safety for the pair, there was someone else; there was Rick. A survivor - if he could even be called that. He didn't know what he was, he simply had woken up in an abandoned hospital, alone with a corpse in a hallway and now a dog that brought him to the doorway of someone who could possibly kill him or help him.

 A noise was made; a woman letting out a deep breath as she pushed herself to her feet. The shuffling of feet against the concrete slabs of the room floor, a small groan of pain [which didn't come from him] before those feet shuffled towards the door left him to believe that whoever was behind the door was injured.

 They were coming closer and towards him until the silence settled once again, only the small panting of the dog on the other side, a small whine as their companion neared until silence. Utter and deadly silence that left his body tingling with nerves, fearful that at any second - he could end up dead. 

 Rick watched in hesitation, breath held even as his lungs burned, just as pale digits curled around the door and edgily pulled it open to reveal just what Rick had been looking for.

 Someone alive.

 


	2. The Mirror

_original posting date:_ 3/02/2013

 **Chapter Two**  |  _the mirror_

Rick had seen many strange things in his job, he questioned it for a while but soon those questions were forgotten because something else came up and he was able to forget. This was different. This was like looking in a mirror and just barely recognising the face staring back at you. A wave of familiarity washed over him as he stared at the only thing that should make sense -

And didn't.

It was little surprise that his "mirror" stared at him with the very same look he returned. They were like friends who had not seen each other in a few years, and yet, something changed. Rick was being looked at as if he were a dream or an apparition of the mirrors mind, forcing her to second guess her own reality.

Fingers braced wearily against the gurney, holding himself up as best as he could. His legs were still shaking, weak from even the small distances travelled on little less than the water from the taps. Lips parted as if to suck in the stale air, but he didn't breathe. Almost like he couldn't pull in what he needed to make his lungs work.

His mirror changed again; he started to recognise features as if she were a jigsaw putting itself together. The pieces were not immediately her face, however. They were the eyes of a young boy, the locks of a woman he had married until it was a woman standing before him. Pale flesh covered her skeleton, her eyes were full of life - her chest moved - there was life within her.

Rick could see it then, as she focused into view; he could see that she was just as uncertain about him, the flesh he wore, the look in his blue eyes that spoke of pain and weariness - breathing, as if he were the first living human being she had seen in days. So she observed this figment of her imagination quietly until she was certain her mind wasn't playing tricks.

"Who are you?" she asked under her breath. There was a weak British accent lingering on every word. "Answer me!"

"Rick," he panicked, flinching. "Rick Grimes."

"What are you doing here, Rick Grimes?" her head inclined, because although his appearance may have made it look obvious, she was weary of him.

"I'm a police officer," he breathed, gripping tight to the gurney. He thought it better to answer her quickly. She didn't seem like the patient type. "I wa - am a patient here."

"There are no patients left," she frowned.

Rick frowned, "What?"

"You can't be - ," she whispered. Her fingers curled around the frame of the door and she began to close it. "You should leave, while you can -"

"Wait, please!" Rick begged.

Rick didn't expect the plea to be acknowledged by a woman almost too eager to close the door on him. It wasn't that she wanted nothing to do with him, he realised, it was that she was hiding from something and that was why she was eager to get rid of him. The gurney in front of the door was there to keep something out.

She listened, however. The door stopped just inches from closing, allowing a stream of light to trickle through the slither that remained. Rick felt his heart hit his ribs, punching the bone in panic. She could decide in that moment to help him or close the door and leave him be. He didn't know it yet, but she had his very life in her hands.

And then, slowly, she exposed herself and the insides of her room a little more, wider than before as if to let him look into the chaos inside to show that it was no better than where he stood. The only difference was the sunlight bursting through the window blinded him momentarily. It was not like she was trying to hide it from him, since his immediate questions weren't stating the obvious.

When the door was open enough, Rick looked to her, "Thank you."

"Look," she stated quietly, "if you know what's best for you, you should just find somewhere to hide and stay very quiet."

"Hide? Where are all the doctors?" Rick had to ask, he had to know. "What happened here?"

"Don't you know?" she frowned.

"Know what?" he demanded, his heart hitting his chest - faster. "Please, I don't understand -"

"There are no doctors anymore," she said, indirectly answering his first question.

"There has to be doctors," he replied. Logically, his mind was telling him that it was impossible for there suddenly to be no medical help anywhere, "What is going on here?"

The woman looked at him as if he was growing a second head and without saying a word, she simply pushed open the door and reached for the gurney. At first, Rick thought she was going to use it to shove him away or throw him off balance and barricade herself back into the room; his grip tightened on the sheets out of fear that was her intention until she pushed it away from them both, along the wall and out of the way.

It was only then that Rick noticed her arms. A pale complexion shadowed by the dark abrasions along the flesh had his mind reeling with more questions. Rick had been on the job long enough to know that what he was seeing were defensive wounds. It was the thick, nasty globs of burst capillaries on the side of her arms that indicated she had been in a fight and recently too.

He knew better than to stare, and despite the confusion, he was still the man he was before. Instincts kicked to look for further cause to her uncertainty when he found her main concern. Not the bruises, either formed or creeping into existence, but the flinch made when she had to angle her body to push the gurney out of the way. Only now could he see the crimson stain of her fingertips, the flash of red on her abdomen.

This woman was not just defensive because he was a stranger, she was protecting herself because she was vulnerable. Further questions sprung to mind, ones about who had done this to her, what he could do to help, but then her hand pressed to her stomach and she looked back at him as if to distract his attention. It worked. Rick stared directly at her in confused silenced, unmoving.

"Are you -?" he whispered, frowning.

"You should come inside," she said, turning from the doorway. She moved back into the room, giving him space to enter, "Put the gurney back in place too."

Rick stood there.

"Now, Rick Grimes," she grunted.

Her voice wasn't harsh or reprimanding for not following directions immediately, it was rather kind, actually. Rick was not sure how someone who looked as if they had just been dragged through hell could stand a few feet away, like everything that happened to them was nothing more than a problem they could fix later. She seemed somewhat unsure whether he was friend or enemy and that, for Rick, was good.

Stepping into the room as quickly as her words struck him, he almost breathed a sigh of normalcy. A warm bath of sunlight from outside caressed him from the large windows ahead. He stood there for a moment, soaking in the natural life source, before a quiet grunt had him open his eyes and look towards the dog that had rescued him nearby.

Rick wasn't sure how to address either creature for both utterly terrified him in that moment, but as he watched the beast by the window, resting with her head on folded paws, sunbathing, he had to wonder what they both were on guard about. He slowly turned on his heel and leaned out into that desolate, destructive hallway and pulled on the end of the gurney.

Never before had he had heard such a haunting sound. The squeak of the wheels sliding into place, the rattle of the bed frame itself until he pulled it tight against the wall and stepped back into the room followed him even after it stopped. His breath seemed to hitch as he frowned at the contraption he had just reset, wondering what his rescuer was so afraid of -

"You should sit down," the woman muttered, limping towards a chair nearby. With the toe of her shoe, she brought a chair into view and moved back to the bed. "Before you fall down - I don't have the energy to carry us both out of here."

"T-thanks, but I'll stand," he replied.

"Suit yourself," the woman grunted, keeping her back turned to him, "but if you start to feel like you're going to collapse -" her finger indicated the chair, "- fall that way."

Rick turned now to look at the room, from the chair scraped into position for his use to the bed that she limped back too. It was covered in things that looked as if they didn't belong in a hospital, even with quick inspection, he could only see a couple of items one would expect to find in a place of medical care. Bandages, sterilising materials for her wounds.

At first, he thought about approaching the bed to see if he could help in any way. A long time ago, Rick had decided to take the short First Aid training course after an incident involving one of his officers resulted in the loss of right leg. At the time of the injury, the Sheriff's department was still putting together it's basis to understand the influx of crime to their small neighbourhood, so new recruits were not immediately trained which resulted in a life-altering injury.

He could tell simply from looking at the dish on the side, smothered in blooded cotton balls and small patched bandages that she had been nursing something large. A wound of significant proportions, perhaps, but he didn't want to step on her toes. The simple kindness of letting him into the room alone seemed to be a step beyond what she was comfortable with.

Acknowledging that, Rick carefully limped over to the chair and sat himself down, feeling the cushion expire it's puffiness for his weight. It moulded perfectly to a comfort he needed to relax himself and if he weren't mistaken, when he took a quick look at the woman who had let him in, she seemed to take a look at him as if to question why the sudden change of mind.

"Thank you," he said again.

Rick knew he shouldn't stare, but it was almost impossible to look away from the only person who could provide him with the answers he most desperately sought. He looked at her before noticing that he was closer to the bed, to the items scattered along the mattress and what he saw was cause for concern. It wasn't just medical equipment she had ravaged, but a small amount of food too - and laying on the pillow, a climbing axe that looked as stained in crimson as her palms did.

Worry crossed his features when he looked at the bedside cabinet, past a small pile of clothes. A gun holster rested on top; the gun itself was missing. Even in his condition, he knew that he would not be able to overpower her. She was still in charge here, however she saw him - as company or hostage - he wasn't sure. The questions Rick wanted to ask were soon dwindling away to mental pleas for safety.

The woman turned to the bed and grabbed a rucksack from nearby, beginning first with the pile of clothing for the base of the bag. He watched, silently, as she started to pack away the items on the bed, in an order that seemed to spread the weight out evenly and gave her ample enough room to compact everything inside. He was like a child mesmerised by a magic trick and yet, his heart had not stopped pounding his chest.

Rick could see the clothing she wore was hugging her frame, comfortably to not agitate the wound she had bound in place. He could see the bandages when she moved back in place to put something into her bag, leaving him uncertain whether or not her injury was superficial or recent. His brow furrowed and his hands fiddled nervously on his lap.

"Something wrong?" she hadn't looked at him, but she had noticed him fidgeting.

"No," he lied.

"Are you sure?" She glanced up, pausing mid grab on a can of chopped tomatoes to take a look at him, her head inclined curiously. "You seem a little agitated."

"I just want to know what's going on," he breathed out.

Rick watched her carefully as she stiffened with the question, hands hovering over a bottle of water so that she could look at him. The woman seemed frustrated, he could see it on her face that there was something about him that threw her off. Not his naive behaviour towards the world she clearly knew better than him, but something else - something that made her question his appearance, his voice. He could do nothing but let her stare at him for her own answers.

Seconds seemed to pass before she finally turned away and pulled open the bedside cabinet drawer. She muttered something under her breath, too quiet for Rick to hear what was said before he watched her carefully collect whatever was inside the drawer and put it on the table top. It took a little shifting until Rick could see various degrees of medical equipment, bandages and tape, but when the vials clinked together, his brow furrowed in confusion.

The woman was showing all signs of defensive behaviour, protecting what she had a claim on, what she had collected together for the sake of keeping herself alive. Only, he realised that she wasn't protecting herself from him. This creature had a gun on her, one that she had not yet revealed to him, but made Rick very well aware that she could drop him where he sat if she chose too. The only reason he was still breathing was simply because he was not a threat.

"Here," she stated suddenly. Rick looked up in enough time to catch something tossed at him, feeling the rattle of plastic rest in his trembling hands before he frowned. "You're dehydrated and quite frankly, look like you're about to keel over."

"What -?" he asked, looking down at the container in his hand. He didn't understand a ounce of the medical language written over the packaging. "What is it?"

"It's a food supplement," she replied. He stared at her, blankly. "They use it for coma patients who can't immediately eat solid food when they wake up." She seized several identical packets from the bed and put them into her bag, "Quite tasty when there's nothing else left to eat."

"How did you -?" Rick started, but then realised when she looked at him that she didn't know what he was talking about. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," she whispered, quietly.

"But why?" the cop in him just had to ask her. "Why are you helping me?"

His question seemed to stump her, that her hands went still once more and after a second of trying to figure out how to answer that question, beautiful grey orbs flickered towards him. It was only now that he noticed them, as his mirror started to take on more of an appearance of her own. Those eyes seemed defined and wide, as if they had seen a world far more terrorising than the struggle of everyday life.

He hesitated to ask anything else. Rick fell quiet as she looked away from him and grabbed a long-sleeved shirt from nearby. The vest she wore looked thin and rugged, as if it had served it's job. She still felt the need to cover herself up, despite the heat outside opposing to the idea of the second layer. With some struggle, and a little bit of cursing, she managed to pull it over her head and tug it carefully down over her waist.

Rick looked away and down to the wrapped packet in his hand with a tube of medical food designed for coma patients. He wasn't going to pressure her into answering how she knew he had just woken from a coma, because perhaps she didn't. Perhaps she just had the knowledge that what he held in his hand was a good enough food source, providing him with the significant nutrients his body so desperately craved.

Quietly, he unwrapped the packet and pulled out the tube - it was rude of him not to accept the help he had been provided. Rick noticed movement from the corner of his eye and looked to see that the dog had turned her head up towards him, big brown eyes staring at him as if to ask if she could have some. His stomach churned at the unwanted thoughts: if the dog looked happy to see it, it couldn't taste good, right?

He uncapped the lid and blinked. Wrong. When the first smell that reached his nose was that of apples, Rick looked down at the tube in his hand as he saw the slight sprout of what looked to be baby food. He didn't immediately shove it into his mouth to swallow, inspecting it from a distance as he once again just looked over the instructions on the side.

It was a small helping. The human stomach could not process hard foods after long term unconsciousness. Packed with enough nutrients to confuse the body into believing that it had just stuffed it's face with a full-hearted meal. When Rick dared to lick the top for the test, his dry taste-buds immediately sparked with life and even his stomach rumbled with the belief it was about to intake a large supplement of food.

"Eat," she encouraged.

Rick turned his gaze towards her as she stood there, observing, like a doctor watching over her patient. "Apple?"

"I told you, quite tasty when there's nothing else to eat," she replied, "and you just seem like an apple kind of guy."

Lifting the tube towards his mouth, settling the tip just on his bottom lip, Rick squeezed the end of the plastic and pushed the mushy liquid into his mouth. He remembered the first time he had eaten baby food, as encouragement to get his son to realise that the aeroplane was delivering the good stuff. The grainy, sour texture was enough to make him nauseous for the rest of the afternoon, but his son had eaten it nonetheless.

He very much compared it to what he was shovelling into his mouth right then. A sour, grainy texture that flooded his senses, trying to convince his mind that what he was instinctively swirling around in his mouth was that of a deliciously cooked apple pie rather than the beaten remains. He closed his eyes, felt every muscle on his face twitch with dislike and forced himself to swallow -

It was the small chirp of laughter nearby that, through the slightly better aftertaste, had him open his eyes and look towards the woman watching the amusing scene. The corners of her lips had turned into a smile, those grey eyes glistened with a moment of loss and she looked alive. Her heart was beating, her soul lifted for a meagre second because a stranger bore the look of someone who had just eaten something sour.

Only when he licked the texture from his teeth and tried to rid himself of the feel of the taste itself, that he noticed the messy and loose French braid that kept her thick, brunette locks tucked off her shoulders. A few strands had escaped, hanging here and there, but most of the hair had not been tended too for a few days. He inclined his head as she seemed to take on more of a shape of her own.

Despite noticing that he was staring, she ignored him and continued packing, turning down her grey eyes to focus on what she had left to put away. Rick inclined his head as he held the empty tube, uncertain. At least he knew she could smile, that was something. It eased his nerves, but then he noticed she flinched again. A simple lean over the bed to grab something at the far edge and her hand instinctively pressed to her abdomen.

"I'm fine," she noted seconds later, as if sensing the look of concern on his face.

"What happened to you?" he asked quietly. "Why haven't you seen a doctor?"

"Because there are none left," she stressed the point again. She still didn't look at him. "You're lucky. Rudie found you before any of them did."

"Them?" he frowned. Again, she deterred from answering and he was starting to think it wasn't intentional, so he decided to change the question. "How did you end up here?"

"I ran into trouble a few days ago," her words were just above a whisper - a painful, and very recent memory.

Rick remained still, quiet, trying to process what he was being told. He was lost an age ago, but he was trying to keep up, trying to keep from asking too many questions that would deter further help. She was the only living thing he had seen since he opened his eyes and that in turn ordered a dependency on the woman.

When she mentioned trouble, she didn't say it like it was a light thing, a little rough-up in the streets. She refocused on the easy questions, or at least what he assumed should be the easy questions. Whatever trouble she ran into was out there still. Rick wasn't a very good lie detector, he just got a hunch. With the victims of abuse, he knew the sound of fear when one was speaking with it.

"Just a cut," she seemed to reassure them both. She nodded towards the dog nearby the door, and Rick realised "Rudie" had moved from the window, on guard. "She got me in here safely and I'm sure she'll get me out safe too."

"Rudie?" he asked.

"Short for Rudolph," she said. The dog instantly looked upon the call of her name from the door and the woman chuckled. "She's as loyal as they come. You ever have a dog, Sheriff?"

Rick frowned at the name, but didn't batter an eye. "When I was a boy -" he stopped himself and shifted uncomfortably, "What are you hiding?"

"I'm not hiding anything. I'm just -" she exhaled. Impatient was not quite what she looked like, nor frustrated - lonely. " - I need to get somewhere and I take two steps back every time I get one step forward."

"Where are you trying to go?" he asked.

"Home," was all she said.

Rick noticed something else about her, how she moved with a lethargic reach and didn't seem to quite have the same kind of energy she spoke with. The action to contain the contents into the bag caused her pain and then he saw the slight dark shadows under her eyes, as if she hadn't slept in a few days - at least not long enough for the body to healthily function. 

The obvious question should have started to arise by then, when he realised that his mind was beginning to draw out the all too familiar details of his mirror, of the room, of even the dog sitting patiently by the door. Definitive features of the beautiful woman he stared at began to materialise. Bruises and scars were the least of her concerns, her body was a canvas of war of the hardships she had been through. 

He looked at her, bewildered, as if staring would give him the answers he needed. When she seemed to disguise her dislike for such a thing by turning her back, he looked towards the window for some clarity. There were no doctors, no patients (save for himself) and the world was vastly quiet. He felt almost trapped somewhere between a nightmare and a dream when he noticed the windows reflected the glare of sunlight, blinding him from the outside world.

Without paying any attention, the woman continued to dress herself, as if answering his questions was not her priority. Rick could understand that; she was indeed a fine mess of emotions herself, yet  _she_ seemed rather familiar to him. He racked his brain for an explanation, something that would give him reason to ask her whether or not they knew each other.

"Rudolph." A whistle left her lips, startling the officer back to reality. The large beast by the door turned her head towards her master, snorting in an almost moody way. "Come here."

 As the beast pawed her way towards the woman, she moved to her haunches with the rucksack in hand, adjusting the straps on the sides to fit the largest of people. Rick watched as Rudolph sat herself down before her master and patiently accepted the forced movement of the woman's demands, even so raising her own paws as if to make the adjustments of the rucksack on the dogs back far more easy. 

The dog sat after a minute as the woman moved behind her to adjust the rucksack to fit the shape of her dog, making sure that the weight itself was not too much for the giant to handle. After a few minutes of adjusting and checking, Rudolph sat there proudly, accepting her duty to take some of the weight of her injured masters shoulders and more than ready to leave the hospital.

"Comfortable?" the woman asked when she moved back before her dog, grabbing the scruff of her cheeks to make Rudolph look at her. When the dog grunted, she kissed her nose. "I thought so."

As the woman stood, Rick absently looked towards the bed again. The crimson stain of injury remaining behind as the mirror decided it was time to move on. The flow chart at the end of the bed for the patient  _Cathrine Calkins._ He had been in many hospital rooms, he knew the chart information by heart, so when he saw various boxes ticked and the doctor scribble written away, he inclined his head slightly. 

 _Cathrine Calkins._ That name seemed oddly familiar to him. As he scanned the chart, he saw that she was in here after recovering herself from a medically induced coma; perhaps that's why the woman in the room knew what the food was for? He frowned as his fingers grasped hold of the clipboard, unaware that his feet had now carried him up to the bed until he was holding the information in his hand.

A further scan indicated that initial cause of hospitalisation had been a gunshot wound to the right shoulder, but wounds on her body consisted of something far worse. He slowly lowered the board and looked towards the woman standing nearby. From the corner of her eye, she had noticed the officer stand to his feet and approach the bed; she seemed to be holding her breath. 

"What is it?" she asked through her teeth.

"Where's the patient that was in this room?" he questioned her. Something about her name, something bothered him. "Do you know her?"

The woman paused, as if she wanted to say something  _more,_ but came out with, "Why does it matter?"

"I know her," he said, as if assured that would help. "I was with her -" He faintly recalled her name, her face and now the more he looked at the stranger across from him, the more he realised how this could possibly not be a dream. "- the day of the car accident."

"She's not here," the woman tried turning from him, but Rick approached.

"I know  _you."_

He saw her grey eyes flicker over him, such beautiful orbs that had seen such horrors in the world. The physic of her had changed a little, lithe and fragile but still full of life somehow. It was strange to see her standing there, in the glow of the sunlight outside, unaware just how much he was starting to remember.

"You're her, aren't you?"

"Rick -"

"You died," Rick stood there, visibly shaken. She was silent. "You died in my arms, Cathrine."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Days Gone Bye -  
> authors note | 15.05.2018
> 
> Hey, guys, so I edited this chapter of Dead Girl Walking this year, hence why the original posting date is different to today's date. Today is a very long day - my brother's birthday, hence why I'm posting these chapters at 3am instead of at a reasonable time. I'm hoping to update every couple of days, unless something comes up that keeps me from doing so! I hope you enjoy this chapter. 
> 
> -the writer. 


	3. 25.06.2010

_original posting date:_ 10.02.2013

 **Chapter Three**  |  _25.06.2010_

It was only on hot days like this that terrible things happened. The wreck was a mangled heap of metal and fabric, something that not a single human being would look at and believe something alive was capable of surviving inside. The owners of the now devastated vehicle would be upset to learn that it now lay in ruins on the farmers field of goods.

The chase itself had crossed counties, put lives in danger and now the chatter flooding the radios consisted of orders to bring back any survivors alive. Anger was a terrible thing, especially with their own mowed down in an effort to escape. The overturned wreckage whined as if it was a dying animal breathing it's last few breaths. The creak of expanding metal as the hot sun bore down on the remains not even music to his ears.

As cautious as he was, stepping wearily towards the wreck was not in the Policing 101 handbook; there were no rules for situations like this. The was the chance that the parties inside were alive or they were dead. Rick Grimes had been doing this job long enough to know not was all as it seemed in the silence and  _listening_ was the one thing that would keep you alive on this job.

Cautiously, Rick stepped closer. These men outranked dangerous; after mowing down a few public innocents in their haste to get to the back roads, several police vehicles had been rammed out of the way, taking down three fellow officers in their escape. The departments were calling for blood, as any good family unit of law enforcement would when their own were killed recklessly.

Slowly, Rick hooked his chin over his shoulder and raised a hand, twirling his finger around in the air before pointing at the metal. "Eyes open," he whispered just loud enough to be heard.

There was only one thing Rick Grimes was risking his life for that afternoon and had he any other way to be as far away from the vehicle as possible, he would be standing behind the lines, guns aimed, ready to fire. Closing in on the vehicle, not for the criminals inside, but something else.

Ten minutes before the chase had come to an end, reports had flooded the radio's that within the mass of criminals ranging from two to five suspects, there was potentially also a hostage present. Eyewitnesses who had been close enough to the vehicle at several moments of it losing control or ramming into barricades, claimed to have see a young woman, late twenties, struggling with her captors.

Caution had been demanded, the tire-spikes were a last resort.

Hostage situations could get messy and sometimes, the outcome was terminal, but for some reason, Rick looked amongst the wreckage with some kind of hopeful eyes. "I think I see something."

"Careful, man."

Another look over his shoulder, Rick eyed his best friend and most reliable partner who had kept him alive more than the gun in his hands. Partners since they had joined the force together, closest of friends since they were young, he knew Shane Walsh's only duty at the end of the day was to get Rick home to his family in situations like these. In such matters, there was nobody else he would rather have watching his back than Shane.

Shane had his interesting qualities, his faults, just like any other man. His stories made a dull few hours rather entertaining. He had an iron-stomach, capable of eating much and without the weight gain. Some had named him the  _Bellinator_ by fellow officers behind his back, not that was much truth in their world that Shane didn't know about. He found it amusing. He was a great, laid back cop who defended the law, abided by it ( to the best of his ability ) and Rick's partner.

Thick, black curls danced in the light wind and hard brown eyes were focused on the job at hand. A strong, stubble jaw defined the muscular figure that would take down a problem without second thought. He could be intimidating, even in the disguise of his uniform and even out of it. The look of a hungry wolf circling his downed prey.

"Go," Shane said thickly, indicating the wreckage.

Rick continued edging through the knee high field of crops. The perpetrators would have been lucky to have survived the crash. It was like looking at something from a movie as he crab-walked towards the overturned vehicle. The mesh of metal that swayed somewhat looked as if for a second, someone could be alive in there. He was close now, but not close enough to say otherwise. It lay still, hissing it's tune song still, but there looked to be no signs of damage to the gas tank; a strong indicator that he would not have to run for his life if the vehicle caught alight.

Only then as he was within viewing distance of the wreckage, there was something of a low whine coming from the vehicle. The whimper of someone waking up to realise that they were injured and every fibre of their body hurt, but they knew staying within that death trap was not an option. The passengers side door suddenly rattled back and forth, but the door was dented so dangerously inwards that it refused to budge open.

Paused now and still like a creature about to be caught, Rick's gun raised to a level that would give him the advantage. He struggled to listen for that voice again, his heart pulsing irrationally within. Thoughts to move forward and helped crossed his mind, but without visual to life within, he knew better than to risk himself nearby men who had been reportedly armed upon their escape. The sounds of the grunting only accommodated the shifting of life within the vehicle as the wreckage rocked somewhat; someone was trying to get out.

So it only took a second for them to realise the window of the back door was cracked and a few good foot braces against the weakest corner of the glass would shatter it. Pale legs sprouted from the door and from where he was standing, Rick could see bloody feet now resting in the folded crops, wriggling in their moment of freedom. The skin was abnormally light, despite scuffed and chaffed by a brief viewing of what he could only believe to be a history of restraint abuse.

Toes wiggled and the base of ones feet were bloody before slowly, a body began to worm out of the wreckage. Following the feet, long legs were revealed in the daylight. The hem of a beautiful cocktail like dress spawned into view, though the white fabric was stained with blood and dirt, fresh from the days events. A waist appeared, a hourglass shape slithered out across the broken glass and dry mud until Rick caught sight of a woman's upper half wriggling to freedom. Her small breasts barely covered by the material she was wearing.

The disheartening thing was what crawled out of that wreckage did not look like a woman. He had seen women in all manner of states and messes, but never something like this. The sight of her alone would sink a harsh man's heart for she looked like she had just crawled for the door of freedom from the depths of a personal hell. Rick couldn't see her face; by the time she had spawned from the wreckage and crawled a small distance away, the woman was on her side, dragging herself through the crops and dirt, sobbing quietly.

All the men around Rick lowered their weapons on a whisper of a demand from Shane, who despite the voice of reason, kept his gun up just enough to keep his partner covered. From the clear path of destruction through the crops the vehicle had caused, they could all see the tiny woman move as far away from the vehicle as her body would allow her too.

"Station," Shane murmured into his walkie-talkie, "This is Officer Shane Walsh, come in."

"Go ahead," the static voice replied.

"I need medical to my situation immediately. We have eyes on your one-thirty-four," replied Shane, eyes never leaving the woman ahead. "Proceed with caution, over."

"Ten-four. Medical is on route to your location. Over."

It was only then, believing she was far away from the wreckage, the woman looked up and silence had suddenly fallen around them. Her head was badly grazed up in various areas, leaving blood to freshly cascade down one side of her narrow face. Dark brunette hair that had once been pulled back into a tight French braid was now nothing more than a sprawl of matted blackness, tinting red and wet underneath the sunlight. She looked as if she belonged in a club, on a wonderful night out with some friends.

And then some horrendous realisation sunk in. The woman scrambled as fast as she could to lift her broken body onto her knees, using her bound hands against the dry dirty to keep herself off the ground, building the energy she thought she would need in order to run. Her back was arched, the nubs of her spine pressing up against her flesh to indicate her malnourished form as she sobbed quietly with relief to feel such dirty ground beneath her, inhale the fresh air of the  _outside_.

And all Rick could do was watch.

It was like the scene from the end of a horror movie and he didn't know what to do. She looked far too shaken, terrified almost and the very state of her body was concern for him. Beneath the dirty and the fresh blood, he could see the scars that brightened her skin with bruised remains of torture. It was the only way he could describe was he was seeing - battered, but not broken, not done yet.

It seemed as if her moment of freedom was not to last however. She was far too weak to hold herself up and her body suddenly collapsed to one side, her arms automatically wrapping around her chest as if to cuddle away the pain. For sure, she had some broken bones and perhaps something slightly more damaging internal that called for immediate assistance. Only, it took her seconds to inhale some deep ragged breaths before she perched herself up on an elbow, the rest of the world unnoticed.

It was just her and that vehicle; watching like some kind of hawk waiting for her prey to scurry out after her; an indication to Rick that perhaps the silence within the wreckage did not mean that those he had been pursuing were dead. The girls scramble to put as much distance between her and the vehicle once again continued and unconsciously, whether she had noticed the officers watching or not, she was making her way closer to Rick, crawling into the crops that shifted just enough for him to know which way she was heading.

The closer she came, the more he could see of her. Suddenly, she stopped, turning her head immediately his way. It was impossible to say that she looked at him with big, fearful moon-grey hues with a recognition that he was there to help her. Instead, the woman froze as if she was a animal caught in the open by bigger prey, a wounded animal who had desperately attempted her freedom only to find the hunter forcing her to look down the barrel of his gun.

Close enough now to touch, Rick very calmly raised both hands. Every second of his movement was watched until he sheathed the pistol. Despite the blood-dirt coated skin, he could say he had never seen a woman so beautiful before ( excluding his wife ). There were freckles just visible underneath her eyes, beneath the cuts and bruises that adorned her face.

As he lowered himself with caution, heels-to-ass, the woman reacted immediately, bound hands grabbing the hem of the dress to cover what was exposed from her crawling. A mewling noise left her lips. Despite the injuries she had sustained, she looked ready to protect herself if she had too and that was the last thing he wanted to make her think she had to do.

Slowly, things started to fall out of place the closer he got to look at her injuries. The bruises on her arms were not from being tossed about like a pinball in a rotating wreckage, though she was adorned in what looked to be expensive jewellery. Her wounds were more defensive, struggled marks up and down the flesh. She was no short-time hostage captured off the streets in hopes to deter the officers from taking them down. Fairly new bruises had formed around her slender throat through moments of grabbing or strangulation.

Rick felt sick to the stomach as he assessed her condition from the distance of which had been provided between them. The hostage looked familiar, something racking in the back of his mind to put a name to the face, but in her condition and the seconds ticking on, he knew he didn't have time to sit there and chat with her. As innocent and weary as she looked, Rick was aware that she was just as much a danger to him as the others inside that vehicle were.

"Hey," he said as gently as one would when talking to a child. She shifted as if his words had slapped her in the face - not a good sign. "My name is Rick. I'm here to help you -"

"D-don't," she rasped, voice barely above a whisper.

"I'm not going to hurt you," promised Rick. "I'm going to help you and get you to a hospital, okay?"

Mind reeling from how he was going to get her to trust him, Rick's cop self warned him that if these monsters could do this to a woman who looked like she wouldn't harm a fly in her condition, they'd have no problem crawling from the wreck and gunning each and every one of them down if they had the chance too. He could feel the unease settle like a dense fog around them both, each uncertain of the other staring at them.

All Rick knew was that he had to get her out of here. The sound of her breathing alone was concerning. Internally, there would be some damage and hopefully, a doctor could provide them with information on just how long this girl had been captive, how long she had been missing and more importantly the name of the woman; a name that sat on the very edge of his tongue.

"Rick?" yelled Shane.

"Should we assist?" started one of the officers beside him.

"No, stay there," ordered the officer immediately. He couldn't risk sending more of them out there, knowing that only their hostage was confirmed to be alive. "He's got this. Just stay focused on the wreckage and keep them alive."

The harvest field was knee height, uncut. It would be a couple more weeks before it was fully grown and the owner would come down and harvest the field. Rick understood why his partner was worried; eye level with the car, he wouldn't be able to see any of the suspects crawling out of it's contents, meaning they would have the upper hand if they saw his brunette locks.

Crouching there before the victim, Rick remained in her sights at all times, attempting to pose no threat to her immediate being. He had a feeling she would do more damage to herself if she attempted to run from him; despite her little jerk from the sound of Shane's sharp command and the call of his name, only her eyes shifted in the direction of the other others while the rest of her remained pretty stone still.

Rick had a responsibility to get her out of here. Civilians were priority, imbecile criminals proving their worth of a threat were not. He could rely on his men to keep watch, to keep them safe but now, he had to establish a bridge of trust between himself and the victim in order to get her out of the danger zone. He inched forward just enough to reach out his badge to her, so that she could see the insignia was of his nature: his had his need to protect. She was alive and it needed to stay that way.

"Hey," Rick started again softly. He pocketed his badge once again once she had an eyeful and raised his hand into the air. "Now, we don't have much time and I need you to trust me -"

"D-don't!" she panicked, leaning away from him. A sniffle later, arching in pain but putting just a little more distance between them. "P-please, don't touch me."

"Okay," said the officer, hands raised in surrender. "Okay, I won't touch you. You don't need to be afraid. I'm not here to hurt you."

From afar, her injuries had not looked too bad, yet closer up, he could see a newer image each time his eyes inexcusably took in her form to make sure he didn't have to poach on her bubble in order to get her to safety. The quicker he got her off the scene without frightening her any more than she already was, the easier it would be to handle the criminals that had done this to her. Someone had erupted a very large criminal hive and brought mayhem on his county.

Slowly, those big, doe eyes looked away from him and towards the wreckage just a few feet away as if trying to understand the difference between the men inside to the man offering his help. It was like she couldn't distinguish between the good and bad in people. Probably wouldn't be able too until mentally, she was at an understanding that she was safe. The hostage had every right to be afraid of these people, these strangers surrounding her. She didn't know who they were or whether they were going to hurt her.

Registration of what an officer meant was not computing with a mind just so racked with pain and fear and the need to get away, yet the shallow reminder of what escape would mean if those men took down every officer here and got their hands on her once again.

"Miss?" he started as she stared at the vehicle, as if she was waiting. He inched closer with that given distraction, but slowly, uncertain. "Medical emergencies are on the way here, but I need to get you out of this area -"

"He's there," she murmured, in a faint British origin. "H-he's in there ..."

Impatiently, Rick glanced towards his partner who had stepped out to offer his help until he raised a hand. "It's all right. They can't hurt you any more, so let's get you -"

"Rick, look out!"

The cry itself was not to encourage him to look upon the victim who suddenly turned in his direction with those grey-eyes as widely round as the moon, but in warning. In the slow motion of everything, he had forgotten that only minutes had passed since the victim crawled to her freedom, since  _she_ woke up from inside the wreckage. Suddenly, there was an explosion, like the deafening sound of a gunshot not two inches from ones ear in the open field that scattered the birds nearby instantly into the air.

A noise coming not two metres away from the wreckage as the shrill scream of the sawn-off shotgun burst everybodies ear-drums and forced them to take cover for they knew not which way the shot had been aimed. Everybody took cover, everybody apart from Rick. Something happened, something so fast that he didn't even have time to realise that the firearm from one of the criminals had been aimed in his direction.

Only the blurred image of the culprit crawling to his feet now, profoundly bleeding from a head wound that took his attention before his vision was stolen by a large thump; his body slamming hard into the ground and leaving him breathless. Everything fell silent in that short, worrying second as Officer Grimes disappeared out of sights of his fellow friends before their worried cries were drowned out by a single yell of pain.

 _Only one._  One so nearby that Rick in his moments of rasping and fighting the cool fresh air for his lungs realised were too close to be that of the shooter cursing his injuries. It wasn't until that dying yell pierced through the ringing in his ear and realisation clocked on as to what had happened. Someone else cried out some dark words from afar, something about the officers being pigs. The usual slander they were acceptable to hearing from an asshole who had just open fired on a police officer.

They were screaming loudly, throwing every curse worse they knew under the sun and every form of threatening abuse they could muster towards the officers nearby in warning. Since the weapon he held had been discharged, they knew better than to challenge him. Rick was far too dazed by the weight on top of him to make out much of what was happening. His lungs fought for air, feeling a little something dibble down the back of his skull from his heads impact with the ground.

Surely he had concussion, but he couldn't be so sure as to what had the force to throw him down like that. He could only barely hear the muffled exchange of threats before looking up to the skies, seeing the golden stem of rays dance through the clouds before he breathed out, numb - but not dead.

" _Cathrine!"_ the shooter screamed. In worry or anger, no-one could make out until the criminal raised his weapon and extended another shot into the crops. "You little bitch!"

"Dispatch," Shane called into his talkie, taking cover behind his door momentarily, "We have a ten-zero-zero. Officer down. I repeat,  _officer down!_  Over."

"Dispatch to patrol, all available officers en route to location," replied dispatch, a light tone of urgency in their voice. "ETA ten minutes. Over."

"Shit," cursed Shane, looking towards a gentleman nearby. A taller, bulkier coloured man who gave that look only a man who realised they were on their own with a wrecked car between them and a criminal. "We got to get them out of there."

Sheriff Reese nodded his head towards his deputy and redirected his weapon towards the coward hiding. "Put down your weapon and put your hands behind your head. Now!"

"Drop dead!" screamed the criminal. He poked his head above the vehicle for only a second before pulling the trigger. "I'll kill every last one of you pigs!"

Shane took cover behind the open door and looked at his Sheriff, who grunted, "Shoot to kill  _if_ you have the shot."

"Yes, sir," growled the officer, returning to his perch. He raised his voice, "Put down your weapons or we will open fire!" A bluff, he was not stupid enough to give that command. "Now!"

Another shot rattled through the air, missing it's intended target by inches. Shane barely managed to duck down before the bullet tore through the air and through the window, sending shards of glass cascading down over his head. His arms raised to shield himself from the blast, he cursed under his breath. They weren't coming down without a fight and this car was his third one within a month; the criminals of Kings County growing rather restless, damaging police vehicles becoming a pass time.

Twisting to a knee and using his gloved hand to push whatever remaining glass in the door out of the way, he aimed through the broken window at the half-turned vehicle at the man for the next time he would pop his head up like a little meerkat. The little bastard wouldn't have a head for long the next time he was in line of sight. If his best friend or the hostage were hurt or worse, that was on them for not containing the situation, for not following protocol.

Cursing to himself, Shane quickly double checked his weapon to make sure the clip was loaded and one was present in the chamber. He was one of the best marksmen in the County Sheriff's department and today, of all days, was the time to prove that. If he had a clear shot, he was taking it.

The silence from the disturbed circle of crops nearby was all too heartbreaking for the male who stiffly had to choose between the others around him or a possible corpse. It was only then that in those few short seconds he had to think logically, he remembered the girl with Rick and then he realised she was warning them about him.  _He's in there._

Awake - alive, crawling out with a weapon in hand and they were all focused on her, unaware until it was too late and that deafening blow had taken his best friend down and out of commission. There was still no answer, no confirmation of life; he had never been so worried before. This was Rick - Rick didn't die so easily.

Shane had seen this scenario all too often; in wars on the streets. The innocents caught between the law and the criminals. In moments like this, the coward was hiding behind a very volatile piece of machinery. All it would take would be a stray bullet into the gas bucket and  _boom._ Dead everybody within a hundred yards; it was far too dangerous to take a shot without being absolutely sure the bullet would hit it's target.

"Rick, you son of a bitch, if you're alive, you better answer me!" Shane roared as the uppity youth took another shot into the crops, this time with the police-issued weapon. "Man, say  _something_!"

"I hit the dirty pig!" the kid screamed. It was almost maniacal. He fired a warning shot towards the police vehicles, forcing them to duck and laughed heartily at his unsuccessful aim. "You aren't taking her from us! I'll put a bloody bullet in her before you dogs can have her."

"Dammit, we have to do something," snapped one of the younger officers on the other side of Shane's car. "Rick's still out there."

"I know," replied Shane. "There's nothing we can do until reinforcements arrive. He's popping off rounds. If you want to be collateral damage, go right ahead!"

"Stay right there, " Sheriff Reese ordered his deputy before glaring at Shane, a warning look that reminded him he was an officer, not a soldier. "If we act irrationally, it'll be more than just Rick going home in a body bag."

Rick coughed weakly, unaware he had been unconscious for a few moments as the world spun in circles and his eyes flickered open to the sharpest stab of sunlight he'd ever woken too. His eyelids battered shut repeatedly to blink away the haze, his gut heaving from the impact with the floor. All he knew was that somewhere inside of him, a bullet was most likely worming it way towards a vital organ or perhaps shrapnel was buried within his flesh, bleeding him out slowly.

He could move, but there was no more pain other than the weight on his chest and the rock poking up from the ground and digging uncomfortably into his side. One thing he knew was that he had been shot. The impact of landing that hard on the ground could not have been from instincts to duct from incoming fire, yet it didn't make any sense as to why he was still struggling to focus and breathe, like a weight was pressing down on his ... Only then he realised what was pushing down on him and it wasn't a what but  _who._

The warm ooze soaking through his shirt and staining his bullet-proof vest was something of a concern, yet as he shifted slightly, and he lifted his head to look at where the damage could possibly have come from, he realised it wasn't even him. The look of horror that slowly crept onto his face when he saw the gentle breeze brush matted curls from his chest helped him to realisation of what had happened.

Rick's hands moved tentatively, but quickly, to the small sides of the woman laying over him as a shield, the growing weight of her indicating either death or a deeper unconsciousness. With one hand, he brushed his now crimson digits through her hair to take a look at her face, which was growing impossibly paler by the second yet as he hovered his hand beneath her nose, he could feel the slightest caress of breath that struggled to leave her system.

A good sign, as much as he hated to admit it. A possible through and through when he realised that the back of her shoulder was damp and leaking through to his shirt. The bullet was most likely lodged into his vest, one of the reasons why he went down so hard but without too much injury. As things focused now and he realised the situation was not over, Rick shifted so very slightly, his attention only on the hostage.

Immediately, he tried to sit up, until he thought against it as the irrational yelling of the suspect became more apparent that he would was close and willing to shoot anything that moved within the grass. With the youth still out there, posing as a threat, it was better that he done what he could for the woman from his position until backup arrived, until the medical emergencies got here to help. He had to get her to safety without getting shot first.

"Shane," he rasped as loudly as he could. He didn't know his voice carried so eagerly to the waiting ears of his partner. "I need help! The girls been shot."

"What?" screamed the youth. There sounded to be a note of fear in his voice, "No, no! You're lying, you son of a bitch!"

"Drop your weapon!" yelled Sheriff Reese, only to find to no surprise instead the youth took a vengeful shot at them. "I said, drop your goddamn weapon and put your hands behind your head or we will open fire!"

"Go to hell," snarled the kid from behind the wreck. "Cathrine!" He looked over the tall crops desperately for a sign of the woman. "Why'd you get shot, you stupid girl?"

As if expecting her to answer, and not receiving one in what justified as reasonable answering time, his fuse was blown and he fired another shot into the grass. Ammo running out didn't seem to matter to this guy. With an unknown amount of weapons on him, he knew the cops were not going to risk coming closer. The officers had never seen someone so riled up before. It frightened the younger deputies.

This man was full on power, his eyes wild and his attitude tempting the life of one of their own for the bullets remaining in his weapon were now pointed at the crops. He waved it around as an indication that he still had the ammo and with two guns on his person, they knew little about how many more he carried on himself.

"Wait until I get my hands on you, you sorry whore!" he yelled, popping off another round.

The dry mud exploded upwards in a puff of bloody brown muck, forcing Rick to turn his head to one side to avoid the splatter all together while a hand covered the girls face as a hail of powdered dirt and stone sprinkled back down over them. Her name was Cathrine. She looked like a Cathrine, but he still couldn't place where he had heard that name before. He hoped he got to know before some idiotic moron nailed them with another bullet.

Slightly relieved under all fear, Rick really looked at her, hoping his fellow officers took the shot soon before the youth realised they weren't about to open fire into the field with the unknown still before them. They were trigger-happy, but not stupid.  _Cathrine_ never once looked at him, still unconscious and bleeding, despite his awkward attempt to press down on the wound without shifting her off his body.

With the vest in the way, he couldn't tell if her heart was still beating and she still, only his own erratic breathing rose and lowered her body in a way that would suggest life. Growing concerned for her well-being, Rick knew they had to do something. Medical emergencies would not be allowed nearby the scene until the culprits were either arrested or waiting for a body-bag. She didn't have that much time left.

"Shane, she's barely holding on!" Rick roared through the grass.

Suddenly the gun went off again, once again too close for comfort and forcing Rick to twist away from the almost terrifying aim with a small yelp of surprise. Cathrine landed as softly as he could lower her onto the dirt before he took his turn to shield her from the suddenly volley of bullets that charged the ground, just where he had been laying. Each bullet would have been an extra one in Cathrine's back.

"That's it," yelled Reese, bracing his arms over the open door of his vehicle. "Take him down!"

"Rick, take cover, man!" ordered Shane.

Upon the warning cry of his partner, Rick braced his arms around the woman's upper half and created a sort of dome shield around her with his body, listening as a bloody war broken between the lunatic desperate to kill them both and the several officers who all willingly open fired upon the vehicle to draw the coward out from hiding.

Through the noise, Rick heard something beneath him, sounding awfully like the breath of a newborn baby, gasping in the strange fresh air that pummelled their lungs for the first time. He looked down, keeping himself partially lifted off the injured woman before his eyes widened in relief when he saw her, lips parted, suckling in what air she could despite internally having a lung dangerously close to collapsing from the impact against the officer.

It was as if life had suddenly shot back into her body because seconds later, those baby steps to breathing again became an urgent need for fresh air, swallowing large amounts before coughing out what refused to go down well. He dared only look at the bloody spittle spraying his forearm before his attention was back on her, watching as she turned awkwardly onto her side without shifting too much, nose scrunched, whimpering like a wounded kitten.

The youth had now turned his attention and rage onto the crops when the officers took a moment to reload. The bullet-ridden vehicle was his only barricade between him and death and he was perfectly riled enough to abandon that hiding spot, yelling in frustration and he unloaded the last of his clip into the ground just beside where the officer and victim lay cowering from each freshly made crater in the dirt.

Reloaded, watching as the youth stepped out from behind the vehicle to put whatever bullets he had left in his weapon into the officer nearby, Kings County's Sheriff department unleashed hell on the lad without remorse. In the second it took for the first bullet to knock him off target and turn him to the violence perilously coming his way, the youthful criminal had realised his mistake. Each step he took for cover, he was forced back another, impact after impact exploding his chest and stomach until the last shot propelled him off his feet.

Dead.

"Suspect down," confirmed Reese only after a mere few seconds. Nobody could get back up after so many shots to the stomach and chest. "Rick, you better be alive!"

"I'm okay!" Not completely, but he could breathe a sigh of relief, he could let them know that he hadn't been injured. He threw up a bloody hand to indicate his position. "The girl needs the ambulance - fast!"

Now that he had a chance to move, Rick searched for his firearm that had become dislodged from his blow-back to the ground. He'd seen it out the corner of his eye, just out of reach. His other hand focused on pressing to the girls bruised throat, locating her pulse rather easily but even beneath all the dirt and blood, coming to the realisation that the consciousness of his hostage was only momentarily if she didn't get medical help immediately.

"Cathrine." Her head flinched away from him at the sound of her name, indicating life when she had remained so still beneath him. "I need you to open your eyes and talk to me. Think you can do that?"

Dazed, but suddenly responsive, Cathrine's head lolled away from his fingers in a half-attempt to make the officer not only stop touching her but to turn her head away from the direct sunlight that nudged her ability to open her eyes. Rick knew she heard him - a good sign that she was still clinging to the very edges of her fraying threat of life. He was running out of time to get her help.

"What's your name?" he asked her, popping the buttons of his shirt to remove it.

"You already know it," she murmured.

"Got family?"

She looked at him through half-hooded lids, moons dull from their earlier colour. She knew the routine: ask questions, keep her focused, find out who she was and who they had to contact if anything went south. It looked like she had been through this before, but he couldn't quite place the look she was giving him as she bled to death.

"Husband? I bet a nice girl like you has some kids, right?"

"Sister," she mumbled. She had other family too, couldn't recall their faces - everything was to blurred. "I ... got a sister ..."

Cathrine let out a sharp breath, almost a hiss of pain as her back arched from the floor and white-hot agony coursed through her spine. The bullet was out, but the hole in her body had torn her open; everything was trying to shut down to stop herself from going into shock. That would kill her. She was too weak to calm herself down, she was too far gone to realise that the added pressure on her shoulder was from the officers hand rather than the hole bleeding her dry.

Her taped hands were blindly reaching for the cause of her pain and it seemed almost an effort to lift them in the first place when she found that the officer's own were in the way. She looked up, defying the glare of the sun beating down on them and looked at the shadow hovering above her with such dull coloured eyes. Everything was becoming harder: harder to breathe, harder to see ... harder to smile away the pain as crimson stained her lips.

"Yeah," she murmured moments later under her breath. She lifted her head as best as she could, looking at the hand pressing hard against her shoulder, compressing the wound and the bleeding. "So-son of a bitch shot me ..." Her head hit the dirt and she whined, "... No bikini's any time ... soon."

"We're getting you to a hospital," Rick told her before looking towards his fellow officers in desperation. "You're going to be fine. Just keep talking to me. Don't  _stop."_

"Cute," she murmured, popping an eye open to look into his startling sapphires.

"Keep your eyes open," he told her.

"No," she whimpered, teeth gritted together. Her back lurched from the floor as a new spasm of pain shot through her spine. "Y-You have to go ..."

"I'm not going to leave you here to die," insisted Rick forcibly, so that she would understand that his duty to protect her should have come first. He looked over his shoulder towards the wreckage with her last words, "How many more are in the car?"

"I hate ... hospitals," she whispered.

"How many more?" he pressed firmly.

"I-I don't know," said Cathrine, turning her head weakly, as if looking towards the wreckage. "I d-don't remember."

"It's all right," said Rick softly, trying to calm her down. "Let me get you out of this -"

With his free hand, he pulled the duct tape from her wrists, watching her wince as what remained stuck to her chafed skin pulled at the bruised flesh. He wasn't going to let her die, he wasn't going to let her die out here. This woman had taken a bullet for him and how she was still hanging on was some kind of miracle - but as long as she was hanging on, he hoped to have a chance to get to know  _why._

Pausing for only a second when her fingers wrapped into his, interlocking their bloody digits together, Rick managed to smile softly. Fear. It was eating at her like a virus, like death clawing at her body was not the thing bothering her in that precise moment. She had the wit of any British woman he had ever met ( and that was very few in his lifetime ), but she was afraid of being alive - and so close to freedom.

Glancing over his shoulder towards his fellow officers, Rick let out a deep breath. He would have to move her, even with the possible danger in the wreckage, as long as it was silent, there was a chance for him to get her to the vehicle nearby. It'd be easier to pull her away from the scene, get her to a hospital. If back up had arrived, if the medical emergencies were awaiting confirmation that it was safe, they never would get here in time.

Licking his lips dry, Rick shifted himself and took his shirt off, "This is going to hurt a little," he said to her quietly before twisting his shirt into a thick slither. She looked almost braced for the pain as her jaw clenched. "Ready?"

"No," she hissed.

Rick moved the shirt beneath her body and very quickly, pulled her a little closer, bracing her shoulder over the fabric. It wasn't a very sure way of keeping her alive, but he hoped it would give her a few more minutes of consciousness. Pain was a great way of keeping someone awake - or knocking them unconscious. He just hoped it wasn't going down that road. He had no time to concern himself with the possibility that she may be too far gone.

Slipping one of the bloodied fabric under her arm and the other over her shoulder, Rick gave her a warning look and she once again prepared herself as he tied it off as tightly as he could, hoping to keep some form of pressure on the wound until he could get her to the car. Her whimper was a little louder than expected, her curses under her breath were in Gaelic, but she settled down rather quickly with a few deep breaths through her crimson nostrils.

"Shane," he called to his partner, looking in the others general direction. Seconds were ticking by, seconds they had for an open window. "Give me some cover! I'm bringing her out."

"Dispatch, this is Sheriff Reese," said Sheriff Reese into his walkie, "We need that ambulance ASAP to our location, over. We have a ten-forty-five B. Over."

"Sheriff, emergency services are on route," replied dispatch. "ETA seven minutes. Over."

"That's not quick enough," said Shane, looking at his Sheriff. "She ain't gonna make it -"

"Eyes on the vehicle, Walsh," ordered officer Reese. "Let's try and make this a good day." He looked back at the wreck and then to the general area his downed officer was in. "Rick, we got eyes on the prize. You're good to come out!"

"You hear that?" said Rick, looking down at Cathrine calmly. His words were rushed, he was beginning to worry. "You're going to be fine." Gently, he shifted around her and took her arm in a subtle hold, "I'm going to get you out of here. Somewhere safe, okay?"

"Okay," she murmured, closing her eyes. Death was sucking her away fast - the time he had to save her was drifting away. "And th-then dinner ..."

"I'm a married man," he managed to smile.

"Married ... too," she whispered. "McDonalds s-sounds nice, though."

"Alright," Rick replied. "A movie and McDonalds."

A laugh, pained but conscious and alive. "You're a m-married man."

"And you're a married woman," he said.

"You're nice," she breathed quietly, closing her eyes.

Was he a hundred percent sure that the other suspects in that vehicle were unarmed, unconscious ( and hopefully dead )? No. He wasn't. If there were any more conscious in there, it would be only a manner of minutes before they were armed. That thought buried deep, he braced her good arm around his neck and carefully gathered the woman into his arms. The smile on her face, despite blood-stained and dying, was that of a female who knew she was in the midst of Death's arms.

He could feel her fingers weakly claw into the under-shirt he wore, wrapping around the brace of his bullet-proof vest. Rick lost count of the amount of times he immediately apologised following the agonising seconds it took for him to embrace the wounded woman in his arms safely before taking a look towards the wreckage. It was silent, but he didn't know for how long.

He didn't know if there was a  _how long_  - for all he knew, they were climbing out the other side and all eyes were on him in the hopes that he would make it with the bloodied victim in his arms. Each paced step earned him a gentle, audible whimper of pain; each passing moment, she was losing more blood, struggling to stay conscious. Their conversation had died, her blood marked him.

In this moment, she was his responsibility and he couldn't lose her. The fight she had in her still was the only thing keeping him charging towards his comrades. Cathrine had to live - Rick  _had_ to get her back to her family. It was only when he looked up to calculate the distance between him and safe that the deaf yells of his comrades to take cover came two seconds too late.

Before he could even turn to inspect what damage such a rookie mistake was costing him, something barrelled its way through his vest, catching him hard in the lower back, just beneath his final rib. He'd never felt pain like it before; still recovering from the last impact, he braced himself. The force threw Rick down to the concrete of the edged road. His embrace on Cathrine slipped before he could twist himself.

He attempted to brace himself from forcing the impact of his fall down on the wounded female. His shoulders jerked, but somehow, the officer managed to keep himself braced just above her upper half before he could crush her with his momentum. He felt the pain seize up through his ribs before everything beneath his ribs became numb. Holding himself up on struggling arms was becoming a lot harder by the second.

The vest protect him very little from the blow, but not the second wave of pain. He wondered how lucky he was going to be. One bullet - one that had torn through the shoulder of his victim and ploughed into his chest in the front - another buried within the vest from the back. Oxygen left his lungs, ears ringing shrilly by the second. The air around him erupted into an opposing match of gun power.

Each shot rang out for miles, each shot kept the emergency services away for moments longer, but every echo barely drowned out the cries of the men that took several slugs to the chest as he recovered [and protected] himself on the floor. All Rick could think about was the girl beneath him. She saved his life, given the moments of freedom she had, she acted in the split second it could have taken her to warn him to get down and her terrifying ordeal became a one way ticket into Death's open arms.

All he could do in that moment, as he shielded her from any stray bullets, was think about her - what she had done for him. Rick looked down, struggling to keep himself upright out of a bullets strayed range while remaining hovered above his saviour. The stones beneath his right hand began to bathe in a crimson river of blood, coming from one main source. Panicked sapphires immediately looked towards the vehicles just within reach until a stray bullet exploded into the concrete just beside Cathrine's shoulder.

He immediately pressed himself down over her and wrapped his arms around her head, praying. Turning his head towards his fellow officers, his cry for help was drowned out by their raging pull of the triggers to take the last suspect down. Another man using the wreckage to hide behind before he attempted to dart across the field while open firing upon the irate officers.

As that suspect found three and then four slugs penetrating through his chest, throwing him off his feel in a balloon of blood, everything went deathly quiet.

In that moment of silence, Cathrine stirred and turned her lips to his cheek, her breath cold as her voice brushed against his skin, "Thank you ..."

And then nothing.

"Rick!" Shane yelled, uncertain to whether or not they had finally taken out all the bastards, but risking the chance of looking over his vehicle for his friend. "Rick, answer me!"

There was a panic in his partners voice as Shane detached himself from his shattered vehicle and around the side towards his friend. The area was too quiet, no order for them to help the officer cowering over the victim, no desperate plea for the Sheriff of Kings County to find out when that damn ambulance was going to show up.

It was just quiet and Shane took no time to fall to his knees beside his partner as Rick gently arched to his knees to one side of the girl, stoic. "Rick?"

The officer softly shifted the motionless woman into his lap, glancing at his friend, mumbling her words, "I'm okay."

"The girl?" asked Shane, reaching forward to touch her throat for a pulse. He paused almost instantly when Rick flinched her from contact, his sapphires dull down on the limp figure in his arms. "It's okay, man. Just let me ..." He braced forward again, fingers pressed against her warm flesh; he felt for a pulse. "You tried your best, Rick."

"Check for a pulse," he murmured.

"Rick, she doesn't have one," replied Shane.

There was an all too familiar look on his face, one that Shane had seen before. The look of a man who had failed his duty, his job to protect an innocents life. It was on all their faces, only some of them were a little harder looking than the others who paused momentarily in shock that after everything, the woman that had saved one of their best deputies was now laying dead in his arms, her life stolen from her in her short moments of freedom.

Taking a look down the form of the female now on display, Shane could only flinch at the sight of her and mutter, " _Jesus,"_ under his breath. Beneath the first and the crimson stained pale flesh, he could see a manner of scars that marked her flesh. Marks made by some recognisable weapons and others that would take a Doctors eye to explain. He cringed at the knowledge of the hell this girl had been put through and could only image how long she had been through it - what peace she must have felt in her final moments to know it was over.

Rick's bloody hands clenched hold of her arms in the softest way he could. His white shirt was soaked with her blood, his uniform was drenched in her life, the fields were growing on it. He wasn't even listening now to his friend by the time he looked down to the form in his arms to see the result of this madness. She was lifeless, a sleeping child cradled in her father's lap. She looked relaxed in her last moments.

Clearly shaken by the events as his fellow officers nearby lowered their weapons in a moment of sightless defence, it was clear Rick was not the only distraught one. Each carried a loo of horror on their faces as their hostage became a victim from a horror movie. Realisation that she was dead dawned on them so very slowly, another body to add to the count of this massacre.

"God," he muttered weakly, shaking.

Glancing over his shoulder, Shane shook his head before a hand wrapped around the man's shoulder as a form of support. "I'm sorry, Rick. She's gone."

"She saved my life," said Rick. "She saw him coming and took the bullet." His fingers reached up to his chest where the dent had been made. "A few more minutes and she would've been okay."

"You don't know that, man," Shane pressed calmly.

"Neither do you!" snapped Rick, sapphires narrowed. "She has a family."

Slowly, Rick lowered her figure to the ground and brushed his hands down his trousers in an attempt to push her blood of his fingers. Some of it had started to dry already, but he managed to remove most of it before pushing himself wearily to his feet, shakily touching the back of his best and the front with his other hand. How lucky he had been; despite his wheezy breaths, the blood didn't belong to him - he was still alive.

Sapphires turning down, Rick thought about his wife - his little boy. This morning, he had been in an argument with the woman he loved over the smallest of things. His son had gone to school after hearing his parents argue for the third time in under a week over his job and now, he just survived two bullets to his body because of a hostage in such a battered condition who had saved his life.

A mere stranger at the cost of her life. Rick would return to them tonight, distraught and downcast and his wife would try to make it all better. She would sooth him gently with a cuddle in bed and he would kiss his son's head, tell him how proud he was of the little boy. He would forget any other day when walking through those doors, but today was a day that didn't deserve that.

Today was a day that would affect him for the coming week as cases like this - when he failed his duty - usually done so.

"She saved my life, Shane." Rick reached behind him and grabbed the Velcro straps of his vest, tugging them free. "Son of a bitch was shooting at me and  _she_ took it ..."

"There was nothing we could do," said Shane in return. Another officer had approached with caution, catching the eyes of the frustrated deputy's darkened sapphires before offering out a blanket for use. "Rick, look at me."

"Don't tell Lori," muttered Rick, straightening the vest so that it applied less pressure on his chest. He watched as Shane unfolded the blanket and spread it over the woman. "There's been too much at home. We don't need to upset her about this too."

Shane could only nod his head, knowing what his wife was like. The woman hated that her husband was a man who risked his life in moments like these and would very much be shouting the pair down in a moment of fearful fury before realising the emotional damage her husband had been through. It was never intentional, she was merely worried that her son would grow up on stories about his father rather than with the man.

"She doesn't need to know about  _any_ of this," pressed Rick.

He could see that his friend was hesitant to take sides. The garbled voices of the other officers nearby were only an indication that they now had to finish with this ... bloodbath. They would eventually find out who the victim was, they would find out her story and she would be thrown across the newspapers and reports for a couple of weeks before she died off completely in human history; just another  _victim_.

Rick couldn't afford to spend another night sleeping at his desk in the office because he was afraid to go home and find his home empty, his wife and son missing - alone. If she discovered the events of today, she would go through her usual motions before threatening to leave him, take their son away from this madness so that every time the phone rang, she didn't have to momentarily worry it was Sheriff Reese asking her to come down to the station.

In Shane's silence, a look of aggression crossed his features, "I mean it -!"

There was no warning this time.

There were no innocent women to jump in the way of the assault, nobody to realise within the moment of blissful silence that from within the wreckage, one last man lay unconscious in those final minutes before coming too, climbing free of the vehicle that had almost taken them far away and used the very last of his strength to take one look around the massacre of his friends.

Clasping the cold metal in his hands, he pulled that trigger. With his vest adjusted, but not properly returned to it's protective condition, Rick was thrown forward a couple of steps as the back of his chest, just beneath the arm as he pointed at his friend erupted into an agonising pain - far worse than anything his battered body had taken that afternoon; blood ballooned from behind him, painting everything within range crimson.

Landing hard on his knees, tentatively touching the wound with shaky fingers, he felt himself sliding sideways, towards the ground beside the woman that had saved his life until he was flat on his back and staring up at the sky. The most beautiful sky he had ever seen that day suddenly became a blurred mess of whites and blues, unable to register anything but his own life-force now seeping out of him as the shrapnel buried it's way into his flesh.

The air rushed out of him, he couldn't breathe. It was as if someone was choking the life out of the dazed man and with Death lingering so hauntingly close, all he could do was look bewildered, needing something. Words failed him, stuttered in garbled tones that didn't make much sense. His partner fell to his side, tugging at the bulletproof vest to get it off so that his hands could apply pressure. He didn't feel a thing.

Turning his head away from the blurred figure of his partner above him, Rick searched out blindly for the woman to his right. A light breeze picked up just enough to blow back the blanket that had covered his saviour.  _Cathrine._  Her eyes were closed, as if in a peaceful sleep and all he could think about was that in mere moments, with his heart erratically pumping out his life through his new wound, was that he would be joining her in a mere few minutes.

Thick brunette curls danced in the light breeze, as if a hand was caressing over them. Her head was turned towards him, as if expecting him to join her on the ground. It was not that which brought an eerie calm over him. Rick could feel strong hands press down on his numbing wound, a hushed voice drilling through the ringing in his ears for his attention.

 Those same words:  _stay with me. Talk to me. Open your eyes,_ but everything was hurting ... and he was fading.

Rick never looked away from Cathrine, not even as his vision started to blur and his eyes rolled up into his skull. The picture of her face following him into an unconsciousness that would unknowingly last for weeks, little knowing that as he passed into that world of darkness with the memory of her faint smile on those crimson lips, Cathrine's moon-hues fluttered open into a half-hooded expression of confusion.

And watched him fade away.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Days Gone Bye -  
> authors note | 13.04.2018
> 
> Holy crap, okay. That was a lot to write. In realistic terms, it feels as if it would have taken forever, but you have to imagine this happening all within ten minutes or so.
> 
> I really enjoyed rewriting this scene because after watching the original version of it, I'd say throw in a hostage and it would have been twice as emotional. Saying that - what do you guys think?
> 
> -the writer.


	4. Cathrine Calkins

_original posting date:_ 26.02.2013

 **Chapter Four |** _Cathrine Calkins_

 Rick had felt hostile air before, in hostage situations, in moments of uncertainty between a perp and a officer of the law. He watched closely as the memory of that day stung his vision, like a momentary dream flashing in a clear, fluent video of that day. He didn't realise he was staring at her, waiting for any kind of explanation she could provide him, deter him from the belief that she was  _Cathrine._

  The death rattle of her wheezing, collapsed lungs were very clear that day. She could not have survived her injuries. The woman -  _Cathrine -_ on the other hand, looked back at him as if he was once again, a threat and it was only then that he realised it was because of two reasons: one, she couldn't remember who he was or two, she was afraid that he had something to do with those people who had hurt her.

 "Cathrine, right?" Sapphires were alight with questions, watching her every movement. "You died." The certainty he had in his voice was almost bone-chilling, but she stayed quiet. "I want to know how you survived."

 "I . . . " She struggled to say the correct thing, as if there was a correct answer. She shifted hesitantly before her shoulders dropped. "I died - I was gone seven minutes, just in time for the ambulance to show up." She rubbed her ribs, eyes averted. "They revived me on the scene and then they set to work on you - and that's all I was told."

 "Told?" 

 "Twenty-nine days ago, I woke up from a medically induced coma. I was suffering - " She distracted herself from that admittance, as if ashamed. "They told me you were in a coma -" she indicated the satchel of food she had handed to him uncertain as to how he would take the information, "- that you might not wake up."

 "Who told you that?" he asked. 

 "Your friend - what's his name?" She shook her hand as if it would help her remember. "Simon."

 "Shane."

 "That's it."

 "You know where he is? If he's here -"

 "He's not," Cathrine interrupted the flood of questions. "He hasn't been for a couple of weeks, at least, not after it went to hell." She looked frustrated, but not with Rick. Herself. "I get little snippets of that day, but nothing that can help you understand what's happening  _now_."

 "Snippets?" he stumbled over his words. "Like, amnesia?"

 "Doctors thought it was self-inflicted," said Cathrine, her brow furrowed. "My mind trying to protect me from one hundred and thirty seven days of captivity - torture - and they said it could be permanent. I'm still waiting for things to come back -" She swallowed. "- but I get snippets now and then."

 "Do you even  _know_ who I am?" he asked her, frowning. 

 "Deputy Sheriff Rick Grimes," she answered, as if it was an timed exam question. "The man shot in the line of duty saving my life from some men who were killed at the scene."

 "You saved mine first," he muttered. When she inclined her head, he indicated to her shoulder unconsciously. "You literally took a bullet for me."

 "That explains the coma," she said. Her gaze suddenly flickered towards the door as Rudolph shuffled closer to it. "Look, we don't have the time to talk about this here. We need to leave, quickly before the sun sets."

 "Why?" asked Rick. 

 "I assume you saw that corpse down the hall?" she asked. She adjusted her clothes, wincing again. "That's only some of what's happened here and I don't want to be here when the rest of it comes out of the shadows."

 "You're injured," Rick said, "You need a doctor. Where  _is_ everybody?"

 "There aren't any doctors anymore, Sheriff," she replied. Cathrine grabbed a knife from the bed and slipped it into the sheath attached to her belt. "There are no nurses, no teachers, no government. I'm pretty sure the president is dead -"

 "What are you talking about?" interrupted Rick. 

 "It's -" Cathrine looked at him, fingers caressing the handle of her Glock.

 There was a rumble nearby - a deep throated growl alerting Cathrine to the danger of the silence surrounding them. Rudolph stood to attention, hairs raised and teeth bared, focused entirely on ajar door. She stilled, ready to pounce on an enemy if only the gurney was not in her way. The humans could talk for as long as they needed too; her master knew the deal of the outside world, she knew what lurked beyond these walls, the closed doors -  _inside_ the hospital. 

 It was a species that smelled like rot. Distinctive grunting gave away their existence, but some could be very quiet. Some could almost act dead. A little back and forth chatter between her human and the stranger could last as long as it was safe . . . and it was no longer safe. Rudolph could sense the threat shuffling, not too far away. It was not  _loud_ enough to be heard by human ears. 

 Rudolph's shoulders arched, her head dipped down low to the floor - these new things were slow, sometimes reckless and in shambles to their sense of direction, unless noise drew them wayward. She knew when to be impatient towards her master. Her human was a smart one, but this other human had distracted her. Rudolph gave her a soft whimper, another warning for them to  _move._

"What's going on?" asked Rick quietly. 

 Conflicted, Cathrine turned to him and raised a hand, "Quiet."

 "Cathrine," he pressed. 

 "Be  _quiet,"_ she hissed at him. She seized her gun from the bed and made sure the chamber was loaded, keeping the handle pressed to her thigh,  _safety off._ "Rudolph, hush."

 As ordered, Rudolph silenced her growling, but remained stoic by the door. Lips still peeled back, baring her teeth as if challenging the invisible enemy past the door, but she didn't make a sound, as instructed. Cathrine limped closer to the door. This wasn't the woman that saved his life or spoke with him a few moments ago in absence of memory to who he was. She showed no signs of vulnerability, despite injury. 

 It frightened Rick a little. Cathrine was now armed, focused and he could do nothing but take a couple of hesitant steps behind her, eyes glued to the small femme as she reached the thresh-hold and carefully peeled open the door. She held her breath, expecting the frame to creak until it was wide enough for her to ease herself out into the hallway. Behind her, Rudolph shifted uncomfortably.

 A turn of her head, both ways, longer one than the other, Rick noticed how she handled herself. Posture straight, shoulders braced. The gun was not her main weapon of choice, it was just an opportunity to show she knew what she was doing. It was kept low, she was looking for her target, yet something told him that she wouldn't use it even if she saw what she was looking for. 

 Rick shuffled forward, as if to stand behind the female and take a look with her, until Rudolph flicked a look towards him, almost expecting the absent human to pose a threat to her master while her back was turned. Her lip flinched and Rick stopped instantly. He raised his hands to show a sign of surrender, to show that he was just curious and a little more terrified than his rugged features revealed. 

 Wide eyes watched him closely, nose turned up to sniff the air once again before she snorted at him, disposing of that idea he had to come any closer. Whether it had been a warning or not, Rick remained still, holding a hand to his side when he felt a sharp flick of pain through his ribs, only able to watch as Cathrine perched herself back inside the room, gun locked into it's sheath at her thigh, looking as uncertain as Rick felt. 

 "Scout ahead," she said, grabbing the dog by the ruffle of her mane. "And be  _careful."_  

 Snorting in response, a little growl of approval, the large beast quickly slithered around the gurney that blockaded the room and out of sights with a hunters pace. She knew exactly where she was going for and where she was heading. One of the lurkers had stalked in after them, most likely drawn to the noise of her master and the stranger chattering the further it moved into the hospital. 

 These new creatures stalked their prey relentlessly, never tiring, but always hungry, like something out of the horror movies her master once used to watch. She could already hear the sound of feet shuffling through some of the broken glass a hallway over. The place had been abandoned for a while, the beast could tell by the foul smell that clung to the walls and the floor. There had been nothing  _new_ inside for weeks.

 Rudolph grunted with anticipation, searching for the new terror that had left such a repulsive glaze across the world. A slow, mindless animal that hunted out the living. People like her master and that stranger, searching endlessly for food. They were dangerous and very hard to kill now that their numbers populated the world. They lingered like brainless beings, stumbling through ghostly hallways, groaning a low, audible songs.

 Rudolph shuffled her speed, coming to a slow halt as she peeked around the corner, lips drawn hesitantly back to erupt a warning growl at the beast. 

 It heard her and without a second thought, Rudolph pounced. 

-  **Days Gone Bye _-_**

 Rick heard her large paws trampling up the hallway, a gentle gallop towards her destination before she was gone. Gone too far for him to realise he could't hear her any longer. He was brought back to reality as Cathrine moved past him, around the side of the bed to grab another bag he had not noticed. It was slightly smaller than the one she had packed for Rudolph and looked light enough for a woman of her condition to carry. 

 There was a small panic now, building in his gut. A realisation that the injuries Cathrine had sustained were only the beginning of the dangers of the world out there. He knew he had yet to question the reality of their world beyond these walls, but he was afraid too. What if he didn't like the truth of it? What if the reason why the world outside this very room was the reason he had been left to  _die_ in his hospital room? 

 The air was rigid with a silence that unsettled him. Cathrine shuffled, collecting the rest of her gear from the bed, weaponry he had not seen when sitting down. She'd tucked quiver of arrows against her back, behind the rucksack she'd collected. She scooped a archers bow from the bed and gave the drawstring a quick tug. The dog carried the supplies while the human hauled the weapons; the perfect way to move stealthily through an apocalyptical world. 

 "What's going on?" he asked. 

 Cathrine tugged a special glove made for archers, to protect the drawstring fingers from backlash when releasing their arrow. "We can't stay here, but as soon as we're out of here, we'll talk . . .  _more."_

 There was something about the way she danced herself around this fear Rick could see she had. She focused herself, yet her voice a little rigid. The task at hand, concentrating on staying alive. She had dressed herself for war. He felt like he was watching a superhero put on her uniform to go out there and fight the bad guys. 

 Rick was silent. In the days before his coma, had he seen someone arming themselves up like this, he would have taken them for a possible threat to the public and placed them under arrest. There was no public. No people. He vaguely knew the woman before him and yet he hoped that the reason logic told him to stay by her side was good reason because he was  _terrified_. 

 "Come on," she said. 

 Rick blinked in her direction. "What?"

 "Look, Sheriff," she said, her British accent suddenly thick with concern, "You can't stay here on your own and I -" She sighed, as if it was a hard decision to make, " - I can't  _leave_ you either; it wouldn't settle right. But it's not safe and we have to go."

 She remembered so very little about that day; Rick could see that in the way she looked at him as if he was a monster in human skin. He remembered that fear she had the first time she saw him, the utter terror in her eyes when she thought he was one of  _them._ Rick could only take a hesitant step back when she moved towards him, inch by inch as if to softly take his arm and guide him out of the room. 

 "Don't," he warned.

 "I'm not going to hurt you -" 

 He flinched. Those words, as though someone had driven a nail through flesh and bone, left his mind reeling to when he had said them to  _her_. 

 "- I honestly don't know how you survived so long. I understand that you're scared, I do - but there are things out there and in  _here_ that will kill us -"

 " _Why?"_ he pressed, looking at her hopelessly. 

 "You have to trust me," Cathrine said, with such  _need_ that he frowned.

 "I have a family," he whispered. It was like he'd slapped her in the face. Cathrine's lips became taunt, eyes downcast - she remembered. "A wife and a son and they don't know I'm alive."

 "Where?" asked Cathrine. 

 "Not very far from here," said Rick, glancing towards the blinded window, as if indication towards just how far they would need to go. "A couple miles. King's County."

 "No chance -" she shook her head.

 "I know where it is and I need to get there." Rick stepped towards her, almost surprised that she didn't take the precautionary step back that he almost expected her too.  "You said you had a family too. Wouldn't you do the same?" 

 "The difference between us," she said, "is that I know that my family are dead." She shoved her thumbs into the pockets of her jeans and scowled out of annoyance. "It's not wise -"

 "Please," he said almost desperately.

 Gainsboro orbs shot his way out of instinct; such a dangerous word to stress on a woman who had already lost so much. "Okay, you win. But you stay close to me and do everything I say."

 Rick felt as if he was trapped in some horrific nightmare. The crimson-stained rags on the bed, the injured huntress he had met in a previous, living life standing before him now. She had her story, what brought her back here, to this very hospital - this room and Rick was hoping to learn it soon, to build that trust between them. They had survivors trust in one another, mutual catastrophes had given them an understanding, but it wasn't enough. 

 There was a part of her missing and he was pretty sure that was the part that drove him to believe he could trust her. The fear. There was something beyond these walls that terrified her more than he did. Cathrine Calkins was his only way out of this hospital. That he truly believed, not because of what he had seen already, but because there was something going on here that told all logical sense that he was  _not_ prepared for this world. 

 Cathrine was. 

  "Hey." 

 Rick faced the woman who had stepped back into the room after pushing the gurney as quietly as she could out of the way. He noticed the large barrel of dark fur panting just behind her legs, muzzle coated in a gunky thickness that mattered her jaw. Big brown eyes looked at him as if to say exactly what her master was thinking.  _Hurry up._

"I know you don't want to stand around here all day and neither do I. Come on."

 "Sorry," he muttered like a scorned child. 

 It was like wrenching cement muscles from their cast and forcing them to move. Every joint ached on the single step he took. Cathrine disappeared out of sights again, her footsteps tapping down the hallway with the loyal beast at her side, not waiting a second time for him to catch up if he fell into a daydream again. Her actions were what confused him. The prideful pull of her shoulders, stepping elegantly over the mess at her feet so she didn't knock anything to noisy out of the way. 

 As Rick stepped into the hallway after her, watching her avoid the ruptured wires dangling from the ceiling as if they were live, she moved with such an ease that it was almost as if she wasn't human. Rudolph, on the other hand, trampled over everything in her path, too heavy to jump and too impatient to walk behind her master. She held herself proudly, though he watched her now and then halt against a dark stain on the floor and recoil from it's pungent smell. 

 In all of his years of services and as a family man, nothing would compare to the horrid hell he was about to walk into. Terrors to explicit for his mind to comprehend would be waiting for him outside of these walls and part wished that he had never woken up. Perhaps a peaceful death in the arms of his coma would have better off suited the officer for this world, because then, he wouldn't be faced with  _this_ nightmare.

 Rick's stomach knotted, watching the phantom rescuing him from this hell, barely glance at the walls. She had seen them before. She done it so perfectly with ease, too use to the ghost of what had once been brilliantly light walls inside a busy hospital, that Rick was almost jealous that she could just walk past and not once batter an eye lid at the devastation. 

 Every door down the hallway was closed, pulled shut as if to keep something in. As he shuffled after the woman, he could see that a door here and there had significant trauma to the frame work upon forced entry. They may have been pulled close to hide the horrors behind them. As he avoided the electrical's dangling from the ceiling, he found himself glancing up, in wonder as to why the wires were hanging in the first place.

 The inevitable destruction didn't stop as he looked down, scanning the floor with terrified sapphires, searching for an answer. Anything that would make some sense to him, but there was nothing. Just thick piles of burgundy pools beneath the ceiling plates that had smashed against the floor and the finger sized hollows littering the wall. This wasn't the world he left behind; this world was full of monsters he had yet to see.

 Monsters that could tear a woman to pieces and leave her carcass in the hallway for the rest of eternity. Rick had to get out of here, he had to leave this place as fast as possible. This was too real for him, too forward for a tired man's mind to compute that easily. Nothing here was a figment of his imagination. The smell alone turned his stomach. 

 "Sheriff?" her voice slithered through. 

 Glancing through the haze, Rick found he'd stopped, leaning heavily against a wall presumably out of system shock. Beneath him, just inches from the bares of his toes, was a pool of red that had thickly painted both floor and some of the wall. It looked fresh. It still glistened in the dimly lit hallway. It was someone's blood, crimson life that was once inside a human being and now sprayed on the walls and floor, colouring in the brutal picture of death and destruction that he'd slept through this entire time. 

 It wasn't right and it wasn't settling okay with him. He just couldn't  _breathe_ without realising that what air he was suckling in was polluted with the stench of death. He was so close to falling to his knees that he didn't even realise that he was visibly shaking, the reality he hoped to wake too distorted by this truth. The horrible realisation that this was only the beginning of what he was going to see. 

 "Hey," said Cathrine. Her approach was gentle, like the supportive shoulder he needed, but it was the hand that fell onto his shoulder that brought him back. "Come on, it's not that much further and then we're out of here."

 "What happened here?" he asked, holding back the bile threatening to expel from his gut. 

 "Honestly?" she replied, fingers curling around his upper arm to gently tug him away, "I don't want to remember."

 "But you  _do_ know," he insisted.

 Cathrine's jaw tightened, "I was here when it all went to shit. There were somethings that were done that  _shouldn't_ have been done. People panicked, everything went wrong." Her eyes fell onto the bloody pool. "We have to get out of here."

 Someone or something had ripped these sickly people apart, most likely destroyed what little peace society was trying to hold on too. Cathrine could be as cryptic as she liked, but he was numbing himself to the full capacity he was mentally able too, unconsciously treating it just like it was another day on the job, another person in need of help, another crime scene he had to stand over and mesmerise in order to notify a victims family.

 Rudolph sharply snapped out to them, making Rick jump. 

 Cathrine pulled away to investigate what had ruffled the dogs' fur. "Quiet, Rudie. We're coming."

 Up the hallway a little, there was a detour to another isle of rooms, above the doors the words  **East Wing Care Unit.** Cathrine folded her arms, mumbling something under her breath Rick didn't quite catch as he caught up to her. His eyes widened at what Cathrine looked upon as if it were merely another barricade in her quest to leave the hospital. He couldn't help but step closer, eyeing the damage. 

 The doors looked as if they had been charged at by an angry mob. The hinges almost ripped from the wall frame, the doors themselves distinctively bent inwards that told Rick a large force had pressed against the frame until they had broken what kept them locked in from the other side. 

 Rick could just see a broken wooden beam which had resisted much of the damage until it was snapped in two. One of the thick beams now rested between the doors, keeping them open for all to see that the handles had been chained together, padlocked in place with just enough resistance to keep a mass of people from crawling through at one time. It was as if they were trying to barricade something  _in._

"Well, that sucks," Cathrine commented lightly.

 "Why?" asked Rick.

 "That's the way I came in," said the woman, inclining her head, "and that's the way we can't go."

 "I don't understand," replied Rick.

 "We'll have to find another way." It was as if it was the easiest thing to announce, said so simply that as soon as she turned, Rudolph had already started walking ahead. "Luckily, there's always the fire exits."

 There was no noise from the officer this time, no questions he had seemed to make sense to him. He just slowly stumbled forward into the direction the other was now heading off. It wasn't until he was somewhat blinded by the sharp light of day from the windows to his right that he realised the hallway he was walking down was a window-portal to the outside world. 

 Rick didn't even look. He didn't take a second to gawk at the world outside because  _we'll have to find another way,_ was rotating around his mind, like a mantra never-ending. He walked through the hallway until he turned the corner, leading back into the depths of the hospital that had clearly had hell rain down on it mercilessly.

 Darkness swamped from the corners, shadowing the stretch in a blackness he didn't want to step through. Just ahead of him, where Rudolph now sat patiently at the end of the hallway as her master caught up, gaze down on the floor and not giving a second notice to what the beast was whining about, something stopped the officer dead in his tracks. 

 A set of doors stood at the far end of the hallway; what had once been the entrance to the cafeteria, which he vaguely remembered from his previous visit to the hospital shortly after his son had shown signs of breaking his arm, was now barricaded by a thick piece of wood between the empty gaps of the handles, which had been chained and padlocked together to keep something in. 

 Much like the doors before, only this time, the barricade had held. Thick, black-painted words were scribbled messily on the door, a warning to the living that could read. 

 **DON'T OPEN** ,   
plastered on one door.   
**DEAD INSIDE,  
** scrawled across the other.

 Rick edged a little closer, to inspect the writing that Cathrine had not even taken a second to look at. He was aware that his newly acquired guardians were already out of eyesight, looking for their way out of this tomb of ghosts and into a world that the officer didn't know if he was ready to face yet or not. It was just as he neared that the doors jumped towards him, only restrained by the padlock that jumped with an audible  _jingle_ of the links _,_ beasts rattling their cage doors from their prison. 

 Rick had never felt the bones in his body jump so hard in their skin before as he stumbled back out of reach, his throat suddenly as rough as sandpaper, muting the terrified yelp that expelled from the depths of his gut. Heart pounding and suddenly still, as if he was racing a creature much larger than himself, Rick just watched the way the doors  _breathed_ towards him. In and out, in and out, repetitive as if whatever was behind them was not strong enough to push for freedom. 

 He could hear what seemed to be animalistic moaning from the little gap that formed, but as he squinted to get a better look, only darkness greeted him on the other side. Something from within the cafeteria cluttered to the ground. The doors wriggled a moment within their thresh hold, keeping Rick rooted to his spot out of fear. He felt a realisation dawn on him:  _this world was full of monsters._  Even if he had yet to see them, he knew deep down that the realisation of this awakening was not into a world he once had known, but something far more ... savage. 

 Something was pushing against those doors, pushing them open tediously enough to force them apart and Rick was smacked with a thicker pungent smell that twisted his gut in knots. The plank of wood was raised noisily upwards by the chain that helped stop the door from gradually opening and he stood there, watching helplessly as something came to light. The moaning was louder, but now humanish, sounding wounded and hurt, but he didn't bring himself forward to find out what was making the noise. 

 Cathrine's urgency to move on from this hospital was beginning to make sense to him. Even though he had yet to see what tore that corpse back there apart, it was only now that he realised the danger was all around him and now more presently before him. It was like whatever this monster behind the door was could sense his thoughts for the doors suddenly jerked violently forward as if to terrify him. 

 A hefty weight throwing itself heavily against the wooden frame, trying relentlessly to break through into the open. Each shake was accomplished by a snarl, a whimpering moan of defeat until the breathing doors fell shut once again, silent like before. Shaking, terrified to move, Rick looked to his left, down the accessible hallway in hopes that his companion would return. He was alone and afraid of this world and for a slight second, he thought about calling out to her, this ghostly woman that came to his rescue, that miraculously showed up just when he needed her too, but no sound came from between his lips. 

 There was another movement just out the corner of his eye, something that forced him to turn his head, craning his neck to witness the appearance of a musty-white finger, slender in appearance slithering between the breath-gap of the doors that were now parted open quietly, searching for the reasoning behind the doors blockade. One another another crept out over the wood, stroking along the material they felt beneath the pads of their finger tips, cradling the feel of the object in it's way to freedom as the breathy snarls of humanoid voices slithered through the gap. 

 The skin was clammy in appearance, white as snow. It's fingernails were chipped and bent in such funny ways, as if broken, yet still, they continued to stroke the wooden plank. The only slight discolouration in the fingers was that of a missing band around the second to last finger on the hand, indicating the female attached to that hand had once been married. If it was a female at all. Another hand, male from what Rick's logical mind could make out, reached through with fatter, bulkier fingers, grasping around the frame of the door as if to help push it open. 

 The growls were getting louder - 

 Whatever was  _in_ there wanted  _out._

"Rick."

 The officer didn't even get a chance to look in the direction of the voice that called his name. A hand snapped down around his wrist, suddenly tugging him away from the marked doors and down into the depths of the hallway, far from the trouble seeking monsters behind the doors. He stumbled with, breathless, feeling his chest tighten as he struggled to draw in the air around him, as musty as it was. 

 There were humans behind that door - but there was something wrong with them. Something so very wrong with them and he  _didn't_ know how to process that. He just knew somehow, he had woken up in hell. In the arms of madness swallowing him whole and he was having a panic attack. Everything closed down and he snapped from the hand holding him, pressing himself up against the closest solid thing he could find to look for support. 

 The cold brick soothed him slightly, but it wasn't enough. He had no idea which way was out or if this was just some terrible dream. He just wanted out and now, as fast as possible and as quickly because until he had the truth, Rick was not going to calm down. It was then he felt the warm of gentle palms press up against his chest, pressing him against the wall, that he noticed  _her._

 Wide grey eyes watching him, pale lips speaking to him as if to gather his attention completely on her and something just ... calmed within him. His heart raced to a slow and breaths became somewhat deeper, encouraged by the sooth of her voice breaking through the pulsing rush of noise in his ears until there was nothing but her. 

 "That's it," she said softly. Every fibre of her word wanted to hash out at him for straying behind, he could hear that in her voice. "Deep breaths -  _really_ deep breaths."

 "What was that?" he rasped. 

 "Did you not read the warning?" she replied.

 "There were -" he started. 

 "I know," she interrupted, "There's nothing we can do for them and its better we don't agitate them." Something about the way she grimaced when that was said irked him, like she knew  _how_ they were in there. "Don't stray behind. I'm not coming back for you a second time."

  Nearby, there was a sudden thump, like a body throwing itself against the doors. Rudolph hunched her shoulders immediately, lips drawn back to snarl down the hallway of the rebounding chains thrashing against the threshold, as if tempted to walk there and silence the monsters behind. It took Rick a moment to gather himself and lift his gaze to the barricaded cafeteria, watching as the wooden panel was violently wriggled in an attempt to dislodge it. 

 Cathrine half turned towards the noise, the sound of their snarls; while Rick reacted like a normal human being who had no idea what was going on. This heart stopping moment, when everything felt as if it were really a dream, she simply bristled as if prepared for a fight from what lurked nearby and it unsettled him. There was no way she should be that calm, no way he could imagine her that okay with the noise, those  _people_ behind the door unless she truly knew what was going on out there. 

 She pulled away from him and continued her journey down the hall for an exit; lifelessly, Rick followed. The more distance he could put between himself and whatever was behind those doors, the easier it would be for him to find his voice, to find out what was happening and to get the answers he thought he deserved. There was no way he could trust her judgement if she couldn't provide him some honesty.

 It was as if she could read his mind, "Trust me, they can't get out."

 " _Trust_ you?" he demanded, rasping those words. "How can I trust you when you aren't giving me any answers?" He didn't mean to sound so spiteful as she took a slight step to the side, as if avoiding the blow of his words, but fear was talking in his stead - the need to know. "Just tell me something."

 "Nobody saw it coming," she said calmly. "I mean, does anybody really know when the world is going to end? I know the day I was told I could go home to my family, I did  _not_ expect to get thrown into this nightmare."

 "Something bad happened, didn't it?" he asked. Cathrine looked at him with a craned eyebrow, as if to say  _duh._ "I mean, really bad - is it like this -" he indicated the hospital, "- everywhere?"

 "I guess so," Cathrine said. Her voice was quiet, but he could still hear her. "I hope it's not. I'm two months past my visa."

 A light joke, Rick briefly smiled until sapphires fell to the floor, "I need to know what's happened to my family, Cathrine."

 "You said your family is from Kings County?" she asked. 

 "Yes," he said. 

 "I can tell you that place is almost a ghost town," she replied. "It hasn't been for long, if that's any consolation. I'm sure your family are fine."

  Rick knew deep down that he would struggle to believe what she had to say, even with all the things he had already seen. Who wanted to be told the world had gone to shit and your family were possibly dead? That's what Cathrine was doing, in not so many words, she was telling him to brace himself for the worst.

 Tailing him along side her was not doing her any favours; he was just another burden, another problem to her in this world and from what he could at least acknowledge of her behaviour. She understood what he was going through, probably because she was alone and she didn't want to set him up for disappointment and the horror that the people he loved were gone. By now, he knew home was the only place he could go. 

 The walk continued and it seemed to get longer. He wasn't sure why, but it felt like they were going in circles, trying to find a safe way to get off the second floor without bringing attention to themselves. It left him awkwardly drawing himself closer to his rescuer for security, aware that the deathly silence in the hospital was not his own imagination. She was all too careful, knowing exactly where she was going, as if the exits had been memorised before. 

 Suddenly, Cathrine came to a stop beside a door. Not to another room or a new hallway by something that would taken them all of the hospital and into this new world she was so afraid to tell him about. A fire escape hatch to the outside and only her ear pressed up against the door as if to hear for those monsters he had yet to see. It was as if she was prepared for them because at a moments notice, as if she heard something, she had her knife gripped and posed.

 Just as the woman pushed on the handle of the door, Rudolph's sharp claws clung against the concrete floor as she came bounding down the hallway. His heart had never jumped so much up his throat as it did right then when the barrelled-beast charged towards them as if Hell itself was chasing her. Tongue out, heavy panting, she looked as if she was chasing an imaginary squirrel until a sharp look from her master silenced her in place. 

 Slowly, Cathrine pressed down on the door handle, listening to the cracking motion of the bolts sliding out of place to let them in with a grimace before pushing the door open. The smell hit them first, smacking them in the face with a repulsive odour that could make any stomach knot in disgust. It even had Rudolph recoiling from the door with a whimper, paw raised to swat the smell from her nostrils, as if it would help. 

 Both human's gagged hard, breathing holes covered with hands and arms to protect themselves from the pungent smell, but it had little effect. It was drizzled around them, on their clothes and skin already that avoiding it was almost impossible. The putrid stench wormed into their bodies, threatening the sickly feeling of release as both coughed, nostrils burning with the smell of  _death._

 Watery eyes fell on his companions face, twisted with disgust but slightly more used to it than Rick was. She held open the door, as if something behind it was pushing back. Any normal person would have let the door snap shut and chose to find another way out, but he could tell from the way her watery greys fell on him that that was not an option for them. It was this way or no way. 

 "Rudolph," the woman hissed into her arm, attempting to breath in the musk of her clothes than the rancid air, "Go."

 Growling quietly, the beast shook off her disgust, recoiling only for a second as she neared before darting into the darkness, turning only momentarily to look at her master. It was almost a goodbye gesture. She darted down the staircase to clear the way out - if there was anything to clear that was. Her barrel form disappeared and Cathrine snapped away from the door, using only her booted foot to keep the door partially open. 

 Rick could see it in her eyes - she knew what was causing such a putrid smell and Rudolph was only confirmation for her. This was the way out and they would have to walk through that stench. The thought left him rattled. Could he stomach the journey through it to see what was on the outside? He would have to walk down there to find the way out, he would have to see what was causing the smell and accept that ... this world was different, that his family survived through this pungent horror.

"I hate Monday's," Cathrine rasped, rubbing the back of her hand across her face. "Bad things always happen on Monday's."

 "It's Monday?" Rick gagged. 

 There was a hesitant smile after she realised she was talking aloud, "I have no idea." She inched back the sleeve of her hoodie, revealing a broken watch. Rick could just make out that the date was the  _16.08._ A Monday, according to the "mon" written beside it. "It's always Monday according to this bloody thing."

 "Your watch is broken," he said. 

 "It was my -" started Cathrine. 

 There was a whimper from behind the door, but through the metal it didn't sound like an animal. It was almost instinctive, grasping the handle of her knife and angling it in a way that would kill the first living  _humanoid_ thing that pressed up against the door. Had it been a normal day, Rick would have arrested her for being armed and dangerous in a public place, but now he was just instantly afraid of what could cause her to react so instinctively.

 Suddenly, a paw slipped through the gap as if to escape while the beast went to her hind legs to indicate that she was ready to come out, whimpering and scratching at the metal that bounced from her masters foot and trapped it against the door frame. Clearly unaware of the pain she was causing her human, the beast continued pushing her weight against the door, whining for her master to open up and let her in. 

 "Rudie, back off!" she whined.

 Obediently, claws tapped the floor as the beast pulled from the door upon her masters whimpers, allowing the human to shove open the door against the resistance and step into the darkness. She kept her blade in hand, knuckles protected by the metal duster of the blade and about ready to attack any danger that came at her. She looked up, as if glancing through the darkness would help indicate if there was anything coming from above that might be of trouble for her before leaning over the railing to look down into the mass causing the pungent stench.

 By the way Cathrine snapped back and coughed, Rick could tell that whatever it was down there was certainly dead - like the corpse in the hallway. Rudolph whimpered from beside her, seeking forgiveness for the injury. She seemed also agitated as if not ready to move until she was told she was okay. Digits fell into the matted fur on top of her head, brushing back the dark locks with a small indication that she was off the hook. 

 Rick stood in the doorway, using his own body as a way to hold open the door. Pale complexion revealed that he wanted to hurl once more for the stench was still nauseating, but distracted by the way the two acted, he could only watch. He wondered how long they had been together for this relationship to have blossomed the way it had. It was strangely beautiful in an almost relaxing way and he wondered how long it had taken to become the perfect team.

 Mind reeling once again by the smell, Rick lowered his head and coughed into his arm to agitate away the feeling of bile rising from his stomach. As an officer of the law, he had come across a smell like this many times and deep down, he knew exactly what was causing it. When a human body was stuck in humid conditions, trapped in the damp warmth - the speed of decay increased. He was hoping it was just a couple of dead animals that had ... somehow got stuck. 

 A dim torch shone into his eyes, blinding the officer. "Sorry," Cathrine said immediately lowering the light. He waved her off, blinking dots of colour from his gaze. "We should move quickly."

 "I'm right behind you," he said.

 A step taken down towards the belly of the smell and she murmured, "Don't be alive."

 It was almost like she didn't expect him to hear her as she started her way down the steps, but Rick had and he was afraid. Now more than ever. Those words alone - as if she was expecting something to be living down there and not making a sound for help left him cringing with the thought. What could she possibly fear more than the living? He didn't want an answer. 

 Just able to see the torchlight travelling down to the next corner of steps on the other side of the tower, Rick followed, fingers clingy to the banister for guidance down into the darkness. He was partially thankful that he couldn't see very well. The smell got worse as he caught up to the tapping of Cathrine's boots down every step, like more than one thing had died down here and it was playing havoc with his senses. 

 As an officer of the law, he knew when to trust his instincts. He knew when not to question the gut truth. The further he crawled into hell, the angrier his senses were, telling at him that danger was  _everywhere,_ even if it was possibly dead. It was a hard feeling to shake off. He wanted to look, he wanted to know, but concentrating on where he was going was all that was keeping him distracted and behind his companion. A floor down and two sets of steps left to go, Cathrine folded her hip over the railing and shone the flashlight into the corner, illuminating their exit.

 "Found the way out."

 "Good," whispered Rick from behind her. 

 "Rudie." Cathrine turned the light towards the beast standing behind the pair who knew her cue. She trotted down after them and took lead. "Rick, do yourself a favour."

 "What?" he asked. 

 "Just focus on the door and don't look down."

 The last two set of stairs were covered with a goo that he vaguely recognised in the stench-drawn hallucination that this was all a dream. It wasn't until his toes brushed against something flesh just on the stairs that his heart leapt and he cuddled closer to his companion with a desperation to leave, knowing now that what was down here, in the darkness, ripening the air with a stomach-churning stench was  _not_ animal. 

 As they neared the door, Rick done as asked. He kept his eyes on her back, attention focused on her at all times, walking where she was walking and stopping when she stopped. It didn't change what he was feeling beneath his feet, what he was walking over. He could feel it's sticky substance slather the soles, making it hard to walk without the temptation to look down and avoid where he was walking. 

 They approached the door with ease and he was up against her, not within touching distance, but enough so that he didn't look behind him. Something about the darkened mass just  _lingering_ there told him it wasn't just the flooring he had seen out the corner of his eyes. There was another set of steps to go down, probably something that lead into the basement in case someone was down there in the emergency of a fire ... 

 Rick felt his stomach flip and under his breath, prayed that these seconds tickled on by quicker because he felt at any minute, he was going to pass out. It didn't take a genius to figure out what was lurking behind him, just over the railing. Piled up almost as if it was a mass execution - if only he knew the truth of what was to come of the world outside. 

 "It's ugly out here," said Cathrine, finding the handle to the door. 

 A little wiggle and she switched of her torch, plunging them into darkness. 

 "You ready?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \-- Days Gone Bye -  
> authors note | 18.05.2018
> 
>  This chapter is one of my favourites mostly because Rick discovers the door which as we know from the webisodes, was created in "The Oath". An episode I will be writing out for a little backstory, dedicated to Cathrine and her husband on their journey a few days before she ends up in the hospital for the main storyline. 
> 
>   Anyway, if you have any questions don't be afraid to pop me a message! Thank you guys so much for all the support - the reads and the votes and comments keep piling in and I can't thank you enough!
> 
> -the writer.


	5. Harrison Memorial Massacre

_original posting date:_ 10.03.2013

 **Chapter Five |**   _Harrison Memorial Massacre_

 The door opened outwards with force, exposing them to the warm caress of the sunlight outside. The blissful embrace of the sunlight had Rick closing his eyes and stumbling to the threshold of the doorway, ready to just bask in the warmth and forget the last half an hour, but what was a momentary sigh of relief soon turned bitter when the first breaths of air he inhaled burned the back of his throat.

 For a quick second, he thought that the stench of the fire escape was escaping out into the fresh air, polluting what should have been a clean August afternoon's breeze until he realised that what he was inhaling was  _rotten._ Rick practically fell against the fire escape door trying to breathe in something that didn't leave a sickly taste in his mouth. Even trying to spit it out forced him to taste the very air and gag reflexively. 

Fingers danced for something solid to lean again, to hold himself up. Rick's eyes watered. Raw, foul,  _stomach churning._ He couldn't breathe it in without thinking back to the body in the hallway of the hospital and then he could see. The sun no longer blinding him to the truth laying in wait outside. He thought the hospital was a terrifying place to be, with bodies locked up and nearly stripped of all their flesh, but this - this was  _worse._

 "Hey, hey," Cathrine's voice broke through his heavy breathing. "I know it's not a great smell, but small, deep breaths. You'll burn yourself out."

 "W-what -?" he stumbled over his words.

 Daylight, he realised, was a terrible ball of hot lava up in the sky, burning his irises the second he attempted to open his eyes and see what was causing that horrendous smell. It felt warm, though and it felt good on his skin, to bask in the heat of the late afternoon, knowing that the second his eyes adjusted, the sun would betray him. It would reveal what gut-churning smell was nauseating him so and he will have wished he'd kept his eyes closed. 

 "Let your eyes adjust," said Cathrine softly. She had guided him away from the door; he hadn't realised until he heard it  _bang_ close behind them. "It'll take a few minutes -" 

 Rudolph yapped instantly when she heard the noise from behind her, expecting to find enemy rather than friend. Rick couldn't tell exactly where she was, but she was far enough away that he could just hear her growling - and then whimpering when she realised that it was only her master and her friend causing the noise. 

 "Shut it, Rudie," she instructed sharply. Rudolph snorted. "Careful -" Cathrine's fingers suddenly clasped his in a firm, guiding hold. When he felt his foot hit something, he grunted. "You've been out of focus for a while."

 "What's that smell?" he asked, blindly clamping his hand around her arm. He felt her wince and loosened his grip. "Sorry."

 "It's okay," she replied, though her voice was strained. She didn't like it. "You can look or I can just - I dunno, just guide you out of here."

 Rick wasn't sure he liked either of those ideas. "I need to see."

 "You sure?" she had to be certain.  

 "I need to see," he repeated. 

 The sunlight was dazzling and painful at the same time. Sapphires peeled open very slowly, as if the seal from the haze of his coma was finally allowing him to see the real world for the first time. He could make out shapes to begin with. White forms scattered across the private parking lot as if it were a make shift medical bay. He could see a barrelled figure moving along the way, trotting almost between bodies.

 Beside him, Cathrine was as solid of a figure as they came. In the daylight, she looked somehow different, as if the sunlight had already kissed her flesh and blessed her with a little colour. Her moon hues solely focused on his progress to awaken to this real world of hers, yet he could tell from looking at her contorted brow and the shifting, guiding grip of her hand that she was nervous about this hesitation to just take on the new world. 

 Rick praised her for her patience with him. As his sapphires danced and regained focus, as they followed what seemed to be endless sheets rolled around bulky masses across the private bay for the hospital's ambulances, he finally came to realise what he was looking at. There were hundreds of long, white forms motionless before him. They were  _human._

 Discarded by society who didn't completely understand what horrors had risen from hell, left here to rot beneath the heat of the day. As he looked down, studying the sheets surrounding his bare feet, he realised that the sheets were not white at all. They were muddy, dirty with a hue that he almost instantly recognised. His stomach dropped at the sights of it all; the mental image forever scarred to mind. 

 The smell coming from the bodies was horrendous. Even now, as he tried to look at every soul before him, Rick realised that they were very carefully bound - not laid to rest. There was no sight that this carnage had even been given a second thought; they were merely obstacles in the way to rescue a hopeless hospital. Their future was mangled at the bottom of the fire escape when it had become too much to wrap them up and carry them outside. 

 The sheets acted almost like restraints around their bodies to keep them from lashing out, but it seemed illogical to bind the dead. Rick could see the tops of heads popping out from beneath the sheets, even a few decayed faced stared blankly towards the sky, motionless and with a hole gaping in their forehead. And he couldn't count them all. There was a flatbed truck nearby, overflowing with these poor souls -

 "W-what -?" he rasped, stumbling. He hadn't realised he was walking, searching for a reason as to why these  _people_ were lying here so thoughtlessly. "What is this?" 

 "The virus ate through the hospital quickly," Cathrine spoke quietly behind him. Her eyes flickered across the bodies, but she didn't move to console him. "These people started biting and attacking staff, patients - it was all over the place and then it was here."

Rick stood in silence before a form, a small sheet tied around the body of a child, limbs shaking so hard, that he was surprised he was still standing on his own two feet. The sight must have been a moment for Cathrine: a terrified stranger, unaware of the horrors she had endured for the last month, looking down at a corpse he might not even know. 

 He couldn't tell if it were a boy or a girl beneath the sheets. Every fibre in his being told him it couldn't be the one person he thought it might be. There were a dozen little bodies scattered around the yard, covered and sprouting the same tussle of brunette hair, but he couldn't stop looking at the body in front of him. The encased corpse with no face or name - just a sheet hiding the horrors they had endured before death.

 He just couldn't look away. 

 "The army came. There were people screaming in the hallways; gunshots going off all over the place. The soldiers had orders to do what they could." Her voice was distant, almost, like she was recalling her earliest memory of this hell. "They started carting the bodies out here, so that they could burn them - stop the infection from spreading."

 He had to know. 

 "I guess they stopped trying to get them outside," Cathrine muttered. It was more or less to herself as she looked upon the mass of decaying corpses, restless. "The soldiers couldn't tell who was infected and who was trying to just run away from the chaos. They were overwhelmed, they just started killing everybody - I don't know what happened after that."

 "I -" Rick started. He slowly went to his knees, hobbled down to the mucky concrete. 

 "It was a massacre," said Cathrine. She watched him, like a heartbroken man who had just found the horrifying truth before his very eyes. "I think they were afraid too. Scared that it was happening and they didn't know how to control it. It was just wrong place, wrong time -"

 Cathrine went quiet - or he stopped listening. Rick wasn't sure. The roar of his blood pulsing in his ears made him deaf to everything but the pounding of his own heart, the harsh swallowing of breath that made his lungs burn and his eyes water. The pungent smell returned the closer he got to the corpses. He wished it away, feeling salty stains roll down his cheeks as he looked upon the massacre before him. 

 A flood of emotions burned through him as his hands moved before his mind could think a second ahead.  _There is a chance . . ._ and then he was tearing at the sheet before him, tugging the rope from it's bind because he had to  _see._ It was no good just thinking for a second that his son was not amongst the dead. Rick would open every cover just to make sure his family were not amongst the corpses.

 Suddenly, pulling at the ropes binding his little boy became harder. A resistance had built up in his muscles that kept him from using his full strength and Rick fought the tension holding him; it was much stronger. He didn't fight it, though. The logical mind screamed at him that it couldn't be his son. He would never be here alone, he would not have succumbed to the fearful aggression of man without his mother at his side or his best friend -

 Rick felt his arms gradually lose their strength to fight the restriction holding him back from seeing the truth. The friction of battling with the ropes registered and his hands burned with the aftermath. He lost the fight quickly, falling into the embrace of the one holding him back from making a mistake, sobbing. He could feel the warmth of a body closing around his form, not to stop him, but to comfort.

 "It's not your son," a voice broke through the haze. He clawed at the arms supporting him, wretched gasps escaping his mouth. "It's not. Rick - Rick, look at me!"

  _Cathrine._ The name bounced in his mind, and before he knew it, his cheeks were grasped by two very firm hands, turning his head towards her. "Cat -"

 "I know this is a  _lot_ to take in," Cathrine said firmly, but it was with a sincere sympathy for what he was going through, "But you have to trust me. It's not your son."

 "How do you know?" he rasped, grasping her wrists. He wasn't fighting her hold, he just needed to feel it. "T-they would have been there, they would  -"

 "Look," she whispered. 

 Rick felt his head being guided towards the disruption before him. He could see that he revealed what was laying beneath; the sheer frenzy to unveil the face beneath, he had not thought of the consequences leading into the desecration of what was ultimately now a graveyard. His body shook with the violent aftermath of a blind panic attack, reeling down from a state of fearful high by the guiding hands.

 There, beneath the fabric of the grave, a young face stared at the sky. He could see that the face itself was discoloured, having been protected from the sun for so long, but it showed signs of severe decay. Something one would expect in a couple of months, not less. The humid days had made it almost unrecognisable, features puffy in areas and almost  _melting_ but as he looked closer, Rick realised what he was looking at. 

 "A girl," he rasped. "I-it's a girl." His hands shakily moved. "It's n-not him -"

 Cathrine's hands departed his cheeks first and grasped the sheet, covering the young creature back up again. "I got her."

 "How did you know?" he cleared his throat. She didn't answer immediately. "How did you know i-it wasn't my son?"

 "Because only your friend was at the hospital the day the soldiers starting killing people," she said under her breath. Her gaze averted, a memory she'd rather forget. "He was alone."

 "S-Shane?"

 "He'd barricaded your room - saved my life - there was nobody else with him."

 "I have to find them, Cathrine" he mumbled, hands pressing to the gravel to push himself up. His actions were flimsy, weak. "I have to find my family."

 "Rick." Her voice was firm, like a mother scorning her child but it roused him from his haste to get to his feet. "I know it's hard, but you need to breathe and calm down. You will find your family. Okay? They might still be alive."

 The  _might_ struck a cord; he closed his eyes, trying to steady his breathing. "They're alive," came his firm reply.

 "Then, let's get you up so we can find them," Cathrine said to him. Her voice soothing him every clumsy second it took to get him back to his feet. "Just take a moment, clear your head."

 "Why did they . . . ?" he asked, sapphires drawn down on the girl before him. He just couldn't tear his gaze away from her. She was so calm - too calm about the dead. "Why aren't you -?"

 "Afraid?" she replied.

 He nodded. "Yeah."

 "They didn't contain the infection, Rick," she told him truthfully. "It got out and it killed a  _lot_ of people." She turned from him. "Now, let's get out of here."

 He didn't realise it at first, until he saw that a certain furry beast was nowhere in sights. Rudolph had called out for them. He could faintly hear her yapping in the distance. She bounded earlier out of sights and now was crying for their attention. Not because there was danger on the horizon, purely because she had lost sights of them both and that alone left her whining for their callback. 

 Rick stumbled around to face the only exit out of the yard. The sign had fallen down through some sort of backlash from an explosion, leaving only a limited area to creep out without dislodging the sign and risk death. There were more bodies surrounding him than he though, and they littered onto the grass outside when room inside the parking lot had become over run with the corpses. 

 His feet were sliding then, over the concrete, limply following after the figurette as she moved with such an agile posture beneath the sign, narrowly avoiding disrupting it from the hanging position that it was in. Rick wasn't sure that in his stiff, unwilling state that he would be able to follow her so smoothly, even as he approached, he eyed the gap as if it was a hurdle impossible to climb over. 

 So little he had seen and yet he felt as if his entire world had collapsed. Everything was missing and he thought back to the hospital room when he woke up in this nightmare. Talking to the ghost of his friend who had left flowers on his bedside cabinet. The feeling of fear when his body refused to respond to a natural command to move and inspect his new world, fearful when he was frozen to the spot.

 Rick was so lost in thought that he had not realised that Cathrine had returned to his side. "You okay?" she asked. 

 "Yes," he lied. 

 "Come on," she said. 

 Rick wasn't sure whether or not she had caught onto the lie, but suddenly she was taking him gently by the arm and guiding him the safest part beneath the fallen sign. He could feel his feet roughly graze over the floor, but not a single sharp rock or broken piece stabbed him as he expected it too. It wasn't important. He ignored his guide and watched his feet practically carry him away from safety.

 He also realised that the floor was wet and despite the sun, he could tell it had previously rained within the last couple of hours. A quick flash pour that wound have flooded the surrounded area with enough water before the sun reappeared to cast it away. He shuddered at the sensation of muddy grass beneath his feet.

 With what he had seen so far, with what he had been told, he wasn't sure if he wanted to take the quick route up the hill. Cathrine, however, was persistent. He could almost hear her telling him that it was the fastest way to get up and moving to their destination. When she shifted his weight, it was to accommodate the increased pressure on her own body and gracefully accept every inch of his stiff, unwilling self in order to get him  _moving._

 Step by step, the pair walked together, yet neither managed a word to the other as they concentrated on their goal: the top of the hill, away from the bodies, the hospital - and they hoped the smell. One entirely rigid and the other masking pain. It worked well until Cathrine's foot slipped on a rather sodden piece of dislodged grass that slipped out from beneath her with her added weight. 

 Rick had seen many people fall when holding onto someone. Those funny videos on the internet his son would watch after school to amuse himself were amongst the dumbest, yet hilarious going. The human race were clumsy creatures of opportunity. Any chance to humiliate a friend or a family member or even a stranger, they would happily pull them down with them, but that wasn't Cathrine. 

 Cathrine released him just before her fall could take him too, expecting that her descent would be painful. She turned to avoid face-planting the floor, dropping hard. He saw the intentions to land on the softer pad of her shoulder, until her ankle had other ideas and her foot snapped downwards, giving her no pivoting motion. Her cry was pitched, eyes clenched shut in pain as she grabbed her shoulder in agony. 

 Rick was instantly on his knees at her side, eyeing the displaced location of her shoulder. "Are you okay?"

 "Weak joint," she muttered through gritted teeth. She clenched her forearm just below the joint, dropping her head back against the grass. "Popping it back in should be easy."

 "You need a doctor," Rick told her. 

 "I told you," Cathrine grumbled at him, "there are _no_ doctors." 

 "Then, let me help you." 

 "Do you know how to relocate a shoulder?" she asked. His look must have said it all because the next thing he knew, Cathrine was sitting herself up, jaw clenched tight. "I thought so. I can do it myself."

 "The shock could kill you," he retorted in disbelief.

 The innocence in her stare was astounding, as if she had no concept of the danger, "It's not the first time I've dislocated it. I certainly  _won't_ sit here and whine about it." Looking over her shoulder, that innocence disappeared, replaced with uncertainty. "First, we need to get up there and out of here."

 "Can you walk?" asked Rick. 

 She turned her ankle left and right, "Doesn't hurt - can only put some weight on it -" 

 And then she done the strangest thing Rick could ever imagine someone would do in this kind of situation. Cathrine laughed. 

 "- Guess we're both cripples now," she grinned. 

 Using her good arm to push herself back to her feet, Cathrine balanced herself stupendously well for someone so injured. Rick followed her up, expecting for a moment that she would fall when she swayed slightly, attempting to find her balance until he noticed that her face had contorted in pain. Her body flinched the opposite way of her dislocation and, as if she already knew the cause, Cathrine pulled up the hem of her Henley shirt. 

 The bandages wrapped tightly around her stomach were slightly discoloured; the wound was bleeding, but no more than one would expect with fresh stitches and gauze. She prodded around the area with stretched fingers, watching carefully how the bandage reacted to specific pressure before deciding that the wound was perfectly fine and she had to focus on getting up that hill. 

 "Rudolph!" she called sweetly to her friend. 

 The companion on the hill above them trotted down, whining until she was circling her masters legs to find some stable ground to sit and offer her support. Cathrine turned to her, awkwardly, shunning the attempt with a downward push of her muzzle. The dog grunted in displeasure and lightly pushed against her legs, trying to coax her to take a hold so they could make it up the hill together. 

 It was amazing the bond the pair of them had. He had seen men and their dogs like this before, the loyalty they had to one another; that took years of patience from both parties. These two appeared to have only been together a couple of weeks. Rick wanted to know how they met, how such a strong bond had been able to form so quickly, but it wasn't the place or time to start up that kind of conversation.

 "I got it, girl." The dog persisted for attention, nudging the back of Cathrine's leg with her nose until, once again, her muzzle was driven downwards to stop the action. "I'm okay, Rudie ... I've had worse." The dog snorted at her in disbelief. "Enough. I'm fine."

 For a moment, Rick wanted to agree with the dog. Cathrine was far from fine. He had seen people who were  _fine_ in a second of pressure and they crumpled when they were needed the most. Stood before him was a warrior who had somehow beaten death twice, survived one hell only to be thrown into another. There was a story in her eyes every time she looked at him, only her brain struggled to remember back past that horrendous day she almost died for him. 

 Cathrine's picture had been all over the news for weeks after she was taken from a road corner, on her way home with some groceries. He faintly remembered his wife telling him how sad it must be for her family, the not knowing if she were dead or alive; the later meaning, somewhere out in the horrible world that had taken her, there was a chance she was enduring what no human should ever have to endure. And she had. 

 Until now, Rick had not properly studied her face. As a police officer, he was taught to train his minds eye on the tiny details when speaking to a victim or a suspect, to deter from gut-to-brain feeling whether or not the individual was dispelling the entire truth. Cathrine had her secrets, he could see that, it was written on every scar across her body. She was in a lot more pain than she let on. Not just physically, but emotionally. 

 Rick was as much a burden as he was a distraction for her.

 "Come on." She snapped him out of his haze, stepping past him towards the slope. She wasn't vulnerable right now. "Just up that hill - and we'll find you some shoes."

 "Your shoulder," Rick reminded her. 

 "I'm not risking a relocation-dislocation," she replied. Rudolph nudged her again. "Okay, okay."

 Her good hand intertwined into the fur of her companion, who carefully walked up the hill with her master behind her. As soon as she reached the top, Cathrine glanced down to Rick, looking at him as if he should have been moving at her side the entire time. Looking from his left to his right, he determined the only way forward was  _her_ was. 

 Slowly he crawled up after her. One hand holding own wound as his legs screamed in agony with the move they were being forced through. Each step added another thought to his jumbled mind of misery. The world was empty around them. He could feel that the further he found himself away from the massacred graveyard and closer to the horizon of the hilltop. Something about the future made his stomach churn: worry. 

 It was silent. There was no noise in the sky of airplane's passing by overhead as he would expect for the area this time of day. The early morning traffic jam was just a distant memory to him and all around him was silence. There was no chatter of other human voices, nobody waiting for them when they reached the top of the slope. Engines were not running and not a single animal chirped, barked, meow'd or even grunted -

 It was just quiet. 

 Sapphires breached the horizon of the hilltop only seconds after his ears stopped straining to hear something more than the choice of illogical reason in his mind. Empty cars littered the road before him. Crates and barrels were scattered all over the area with more body-bags than he could even begin to count littered what little room left there was on the floor. The floor was terribly charred, his fingertips black when he brought himself to his feet at the top.

 It looked military. There was scavenged equipment surrounding the civilian car park all around him. A helicopter sat directly in front of him, surprisingly in one piece compared to the rest of the park around him. It was like someone had detonated a bomb and destroyed what was going on here; perhaps it was intentional sabotage for the massacre behind him, but the results were just as horrifying. 

 Jagged, bent metal frames of F.E.M.A like tents were scattered all over the area. Some had been in the direct centre of the blast zone, others had made it barely on the outside. He could see that there were what seemed to be mini medical zones within the tents. A place to understand or help civilians with whatever terrible event had swept over his beloved nation.

 The building to the far right was part of the Harrison Memorial hospital. A large psychiatric unit that had gone up several years ago to accommodate the growing population of the poor and sickly minds in need of help. It looked to have endured a fire of it's own. The windows were blown, the distinctive charcoal black streak licked up the side of the building, indicating that a fire from within had burned long and hot and for many hours without being tended too. 

 There was no movement in the windows, no indication that someone living had been anywhere near here for weeks. "Cathrine -"

 A harsh cry filled the air, startling Rick, silencing the question he wished to impose one last time on the woman who had guided him to a safety from an invisible enemy. Panic filled him as he turned sharply to see if Cathrine was by his side, only to discover that he was standing there alone and her voice had echoed from nearby. Just as he turned to hoarsely call for her, he caught movement from the corner of his eye.

  "Are you okay?" he demanded, hobbling towards the hunched over figure. 

 The woman groaned in response, her arm trapped between her knees as if to hold it straight as she popped the limb back into place. Rick approached, until Cathrine flung out her hand and with one finger raised, shook it. He stopped immediately where he was and watched, uncertain what he could do to help when she didn't even want him near her. The sight of the poor creature attempting to heal herself once again was disheartening.

 Returning her good hand to her shoulder, Cathrine braced herself against the nose of the helicopter and let out a long, deep breath through her nose. Her hand flexed around the arm and quite firmly she gripped it, despite the pain it caused her. Rick wanted to offer his help, to feel useful, but he found himself watching in amazement that she was so certain this method would pop the limb back into place -

 Suddenly, she applied a relocation method unlike any he had seen before. Using both the side nose of the helicopter and as much push as she could manage, Cathrine rotated the bulb back into it's socket with a contorted face, lips sealed together to keep another cry of pain as silent as possible. The noise she made was as if she was gagging for air, a long, breathless whine that ended with a deep pant when a satisfying  _pop_  echoed. 

 "Cathrine," he broke the silence, limping towards her. "Are you okay?" 

 She crouched beside her backpack, blinking back tears of pain, "I'm going to be sore a couple of days. Can't shoot for shit now -"

 "Do you have anything for it?" he asked. "Ice pack or something to take the swelling down."

 "Unfortunately, my room was out of everything but a few bandages," replied Cathrine. She yanked open her backpack and rummaged inside. "Got some painkillers and anti inflammatory tablets, though. That'll do for now."

 "You need to rest it," he told her. When Cathrine looked at him, he deterred from surrendering helplessly to her gaze. "You just popped your shoulder back into place with no medical assistance. You need to rest it for a day at least." He reached out. "Let me carry the bag."

 "And fall over like I did?" she asked. "I got a good shoulder, Sheriff. I can handle it." When he looked at her, she rolled her eyes and instead indicated her bow nearby. "Do you know how to use one of those things?" 

 "No," he said truthfully.

 "Right," she drew out the word before looking at her options. A bottle of water in one hand and the intended tablets in the other, she swallowed them down and sighed, "Could you turn around for a moment?" 

 "Why?" he asked. 

 Cathrine rummaged through her bag again, drawing a piece of fabric from the contents. "I don't intend to wear a shoulder strap over my shirt now." 

"Do you dislocate your shoulder often?" asked Rick. 

 "First day I woke up from my coma," Cathrine explained quietly, "panicked because I had no idea where I was but I saw the saline bag and -" She cut herself off as she stood, perched herself on the open helicopter edge and awkwardly began removing her shirt, " - well, I ended up on the floor, dislocated shoulder."

 "That must have been terrifying, especially after what you must have been through," he said gently. Those moon pools flickered at him, quiet. "If it makes you feel any better, I once popped my shoulder falling out a tree."

 Cathrine chirped, "A tree?"

 "I was young." Rick turned on his heel the moment he realised she was pulling her shirt up over her head. His cheeks flushed slight that he had stared so long to begin with. "Trying to impress a girl by racing Trevor Anderson to the top."

 "Bet you didn't climb anymore trees after that," replied Cathrine.

 "Tried again four days later," smiled Rick, "had a rematch."

 "Who won?" she asked. 

 "Trevor did," he said, "but I made it to the top of the tree and back down." Rick swayed lightly, absently lost in the memory in a peaceful moment of distraction. "He got stuck. Turns out, he was scared of heights."

 "Not a fan myself -" she hissed suddenly, "Dammit!"

 Rick shuffled around on his feet, glancing over his shoulder in worry. She was half naked, with the exception of her bra. He didn't mean to look. Reminiscing about his past gave him a second to feel normal, as if there was a chance that the world could still be  _normal._ Recalling the first and only time he had ever dislocated his shoulder was his way of trying to help Cathrine understand that he understood. 

 What Rick did not expect to see was the natural figure of a woman who was in a state so bad that he lost count over the healed injuries she had sustained on her stomach and abdomen alone. Her clothes could easily hide the damages and even as she nurtured her shoulder with the support, having acknowledged that Rick was now looking, she did little to shy away from the marks of her past. 

 A decorative canvas of injury covered her flesh and there she sat, most likely with little memory of where each wounded scar came from. They marked her skin as though she had been born with them and she showed no shame in wearing them either, not like most women would have with the knotted scars that marked just below her ribs and her hip area. It was when she stood turned her back to him that he flinched at the sight. 

 Knotted scars racked her shoulder blades, in the precise incisions of a thin-like weapon that had struck her repeatedly in the same area until the skin had welted and opened. Rick's gut clenched as he looked further down her curved spine, looking at the scars, the light path of burn-scarred flesh just on the back of her hip. His logical mind remembered the state of her when she had crawled free of the wreck.

 "Horrid, isn't it?" her voice slipped through his battling thoughts. Rick looked at her immediately as she finished binding the support strap. "Each scar has it's story and I don't know much of where they came from - or why.  _Those_ days are a bit of a blur."

 "What happened to you?" he breathed out quietly. He had never seen anything like it before; no living person should have to endure such evil. "Was this all before -?"

 "This shit storm?" Cathrine asked. She nodded, reaching for her shirt nearby. She didn't look ashamed of her injuries, but her tone was something different, masking her sadness. "Yeah. The docs told me that a lot of it was inflicted - I thought for hours before they told me that I'd done it to myself."

 "How much did they tell you?" replied Rick. 

 "Not a lot," she said. "I guess they wanted my memory to come back first before they put thoughts into my head. They knew what they knew." She shrugged her good shoulder. "I know I am better off without the memory."

 "Because it scares you?" he questioned before he could stop himself. 

 Cathrine tugged down the Henley shirt, "Because when I saw you that day, Rick - the first friendly face I'd seen in  _months -_ trying to help me get away from the people who put these scars on me int he first place _,_ I was terrified of you." Moon hues darted elsewhere, frustrated. "I don't want to be afraid."

 Slowly, Rick turned his gaze to the ground. That admission alone made the officer realise that there was a chance one day her memories of the worst time of her life would return to haunt her, that one day, she would wake up screaming because the men that hurt her had tormented her dreams. Those were the hours she was longing to keep at a distance for as much time as possible; the insecurities of trust behind her.

 Cathrine was an incredibly brave woman, but she was also a victim trying to avoid a huge part of her past. She cleared her throat and he turned back to her, unable to remove the sadness from his gaze when they met gazes. He couldn't help the look and suddenly, her face twisted, annoyed that he would show pity on her in such a humanly way. A look Cathrine must have been all too used too before her world went to hell  _again._

"Come on," she indicated, drawing her backpack up from the floor. She swung it onto her good shoulder and turned towards home. "We'll see if we can find a working car or something."

 "It's not that far," Rick muttered. 

 "And you don't have any shoes," she reminded him. 

 "Yeah," he replied, glancing down to his feet. 

 Cathrine clicked her fingers, watching Rudolph poke her head up from above some nearby crates before she charged onwards. "Let's get going then."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- days gone bye -   
> authors note | 20.05.2018
> 
> the note below won't go away, I don't know how it got there -_- but there's nothing I can do about it. 
> 
> -the writer.


	6. The First of Them

_original posting date:_ 14.03.2013

 **Chapter Six |**   _The First of Them_

 Civilisation, in Rick's mind, had never been quiet and that was perhaps why he found it hard to concentrate, because the silence was nerving. The existence of the population came with the price of noise, whether it was night or day. There were calm moments in the hours, but it was never as silent as it was now. Not even the wildlife of Kings County made a sound, the birds were all but hushed, not a single dog barked -

 Rick felt like a hyperactive child, attention spanning from one house to the next, as if trying to find just a single old lady standing behind her curtains, looking out into the debris filled streets to see if it was okay to come out. The further they walked in this eerie silence, the harder it became to concentrate on just one thing. He felt himself torn between the officer trying to understand this world, to a desperate man just wanting the sound of a human voice -  _any_ voice.

 An hour had passed since the hospital. When his mind had lost count of silly things, like the number of empty driveways or open front doors, he started counting how many seconds in a minute, step by step until they were just a little over an hour away. They were still on the sidewalk, sticking to the main road leading into Kings County for the sake of his sanity, but he could see from Cathrine's posture that she was uncomfortably exposed. 

 They didn't talk as much as he wanted them too. Rick was aware that she could be bottling up the right words for his sake; she seemed evidently traumatised to be walking the streets of his home street. Something about the way her eyes flickered to one particular side of the street, as if counting down how many homes until she recognised one - just one. He didn't see that look change, not even when the hour had passed and they were finally reaching the centre of his beloved town. 

 "How much further?" Cathrine asked quietly. He didn't realise she was ahead of him until he stopped, just inches from bumping into her. "Where do you live?"

 Rick indicated the bend, "Two streets over. We should be there soon."

 "It's a pain none of those army vehicles worked," she commented, turning to keep walking. "The engines were fried from the blast that knocked the zone out." 

 "There aren't many cars," Rick stated, but it wasn't a comment he meant to say aloud. 

 "A lot of them were used to get out of the town in the earlier days. Heading for the designated safe zones," replied Cathrine. "We'd be lucky to find anything with an engine."

 "Where is everybody?" he had to ask. 

 "Probably on the highway, heading to the city." Cathrine rolled her shoulder with a wince, flexing her fingers as she kept a pace he could keep up with. "Everybody was told to head there in the first few days."

 "Did you -?" he looked at her. 

 "Yes," she answered. 

 "And?" he asked. 

 "I didn't get very far," she admitted. When she caught him looking at her for elaboration, Cathrine frowned, "Mostly barricades trying to keep the sickness out - and the healthy ones safe, but it was manic. Couldn't tell the difference, so grid-locked vehicles kept the majority of people from the city."

 By then, Cathrine's words had drawn off into a quiet mumble, as if determined not to fall back into the pattern of remembering the painful times when she was on task. She didn't have to be here, she didn't have to be looking after him. Truth was, Cathrine was just helping him to get rid of him. 

 Rick could see that on her face, realising she didn't want to hear all of his questions, she didn't want to answer the personal inquiries that forced her to open herself up to an attack if he deemed her a threat. She looked as if she had been made for this world and though he could see she was doing her best  _not_ to let this bother her, something was hurting Cathrine. The location, the scenery, the avoiding answers to personal questions. 

 The sun overhead was most likely making him overthink why she refused to answer the direct question:  _what happened?_ It was as if she was waiting for the perfect presentation, the example of this world she had been living in while he lay comatose in a hospital.  Rick wasn't sure what that could be, already he had seen enough to make him question whether or not this was a dream world, a false reality to help his mind heal after his own traumatic experience.

 "Come on," Cathrine indicated, "We'll find something."

[  **days gone bye** ]

 By the time they had reached the next street, Rick realised his feet were burning. The sun was overhead, burning down on them both and making the concrete as hot as coal to walk on. With no vehicle in sights, he knew by the time they reached his house, he would most likely be nursing blisters as Cathrine seemed inclined to get him shoes, but refused to enter any nearby homes unnecessarily. 

 "Hey." Rick jerked to a stop when Cathrine grabbed him by the arm and yanked, not too hard to alarm him, but to grab his attention. "There."

 At first, he thought she was pointing towards the grasslands, a large open park that had been in the neighbourhood since the newer homes went up a few years back. The park had been commissioned after the neighbourhood was deemed one of those up-worthy estates. There was a pond in the centre of the park a few metres in, where the children were known to feed the local ducks and paddle their feet. 

 When he realised Cathrine wasn't indicating that, his next guess was Rudolph, who was just ahead investigating something laying between the pillars of the grass. He expected Cathrine to call for the dog to come to her heel, but when the seconds passed and nothing was said, he squinted ahead to see what the beast was doing in the hopes to understand what his guide was stopping him for.

 The grass of the field was starting to overgrow. It had been partially mowed in the hours of the downfall of his community, he could see one side of the field was much more overgrown than the other side, so there was Rudolph, in the taller grass, nosing through it happily. She stopped only for a few seconds to teeth on the green before she moved on, crawling through it as if it was filled with the strange scents of this strange world.

 And then he noticed it, as Rudolph passed by, the reflection of the sunlight glittering of the metal in the grass. The rest of the community was void of all transportation. Even now, they had not seen a single vehicle that could offer them both a rest, not a single garage door that was not wide open and empty of all transportation that could provide them that quicker route to their destination. 

 Instead, laying in the grass were two discarded bikes; teenager ones by the looks of them. They probably belonged to some of the local boys who were usually riding through the park after a school day to unwind. It was only then that Rick realised that Cathrine was being very serious about putting their legs to further work when she approached the bikes and pulled one of the frames up to inspect it.

 "They're in perfect health," Cathrine said to him, almost in relief. "We can get to your house quicker - might relieve your feet for a bit."

 "It's not much further," Rick agreed.

 As he approached, Rick noticed that Rudolph had stopped searching the grass as he leaned down to pick up the bike for his own inspection. It was pointless, after all, to find that one bike was healthy while the other was out of commission. He felt certain that Cathrine would decide to walk the last fifteen minutes or so to his home because neither of them were in the condition to give the other a ride.

 When he had the bike standing, Rick stared at Rudolph. Her body had stilled and her attention was focused on one precise spot. His brow furrowed as he followed her gaze, to a patch of grass not too far away from the bikes themselves. He noticed that the grass was oddly disfigured, compressed down as if something heavy had rolled itself over it very slow, very erratic in direction - 

 And then he noticed that Rudolph had only stopped moving because she was standing in a similar patch of grass, identical to the trail, as if the scent of what had caused the trail had pulled her from the freedom of her roaming and returned her to the priority of her explorations. Her haunches were low, her body ready to pounce if she felt threatened. Her jaw taunt and her teeth were revealed, but she didn't growl. 

 When he followed that trail, he saw something laying in the grass. Something oddly body shaped and laying there, motionless really. The trail ended with the corpse and though at first, he didn't register the appearance of the body, his mind sucked in the visual aid of dry, mummified flesh that was strapped tight to bone, the length of flesh along the human's back so taunt that he saw every rib bone and disk of her spine. 

 The long he looked, the more he recognised that the flesh had somehow torn in certain areas, as if the skin had been too tight and been pulled in the way a shoulder would rotate in order to make the arm move. The body looked weather worn and decayed, yet when he looked at the grass leading to the corpse, the grass didn't look yellowed by the initial decomposition of the body. 

 Rick felt his stomach drop as he glanced at the body, just laying there. It took him seconds to realise that, like the body at the hospital, parts of the corpse had been eaten. He realised the creases in the flesh in certain areas were not where the skin had creased as it become tight around the bone, but infact claw marks, like a wild animal had used her body as a food source in desperation. 

 Then other features began to spring to light, the fact that the corpse was a woman. The dull, straw-like strands of her brunette hair was now in malted, knotted strands. It was as he moved lover down the appearance of the corpse that he realised she was missing everything from her pelvis down. He could see her spine, curved towards the ground in her final resting place, knotted with pieces of flesh and muscle here and there. 

 There was enough flesh on her body to hold most of what was left of her insides in her body, but the entrails of intestines stretched out behind her. The long stretch of flesh that should have been inside her body was the second corpse he had seen in so many hours baring the resemblance of a monster having torn her to pieces. His face contorted in an attempt to keep the bile down. 

 "We should go," Cathrine muttered, drawing him from his thoughts. She gripped tight to the bike's handle bars and put her foot to the peddle. "Now."

 "Cathrine," he tried, but she turned to him. 

 "Now -!"

 It was the gasp that silenced her, as if the slight raise of her voice was accompanied by a painful intake of breath, but it was after her gaze shifted away from him that he realised it was not  _Cathrine_ that had made the noise. He was not beyond understanding, because he had seen so much today already that his mind just didn't register that it was not the actual stillness of the corpse that worried her, but something much more. 

 So when he heard the gasp, Rick realised that it was coming from his right. It forced him to look as Rudolph started to growl ever so softly at the area the corpse had been lying in. The gentle breaths of a body attempting to breathe was suddenly followed by the terrible crunching noise of the jaw breaking open against the want of the flesh. The sound drove a chill through his spine as he just watched the impossible.

 Life seemingly returned to the corpse. He didn't know how, he didn't understand how someone could survive the very state the body was in, but it  _moved._ It rocked on it's side, as if it remembered how to breathe until slowly, the motion allowed it to fall onto it's back and stare up towards the sky, drawn to attention by the very noise of the conversation between the two humans nearby. 

 And that was when Rick realised why Cathrine was afraid. 

 The corpse was  _alive._ Somehow, it's body reanimated upon the sound of the living and now it lay there, twitching with the appearance of a living, human body. The jaw crunched terribly as it rotated, as if it was chewing. It's head lulled to one side, revealing that the left side of her throat had been gnawed away to the tendons. He could see the dark, black flesh rotting in the sunlight as it looked at him. 

 The first thing he noticed was her lips, because there were none. The flesh around what used to be her mouth was torn away, jagged as if ripped apart, leaving only the chipped, rotten appearance of her teeth. She barely had any of her nose left, but it didn't seem to deter her from "inhaling", recognising the appearance of the living nearby. It's breathing seemed to increase as it sucked in the air - impossibly  _breathing._

 Sunken, misty eyes were shifting wildly, facing what startled prey had fallen into her territory this time. Rick saw that her chest was missing, or at least what remained of her breasts had sunken and become taunt against the flesh, revealing a better view of the damage that accompanied the injuries which had taken this woman's life. He sucked it all in, registered that this  _corpse_ was alive somehow. 

 It moved again, using what little energy it had to roll onto it's chest. Long, withered arms stretched out to grasp the grass, using what it could to drag its torso against the rough terrain in order to reach them. Although it had lost the function of it's legs, somehow, the terrifying monstrosity managed to grind it's teeth together in a feverish desperation for them - their flesh, even though it was too far away to reach them before they fled. 

 Something yapped at it, a noise that the head quickly registered when it turned towards the dog agitated by the appearance of it. Rick had never seen anything like it before, watching as this corpse ground it's teeth and  _snarled_ back at the beast, provoking another sharp bark that gained it's entire attention. Rudolph was big enough, lively enough, but it seemed almost torn between the three of them. 

 Reaching out towards them, it grabbed hold of the grass with it's other hand and pulled itself against the dirt and the grass, slowed by the lack of muscle in it's arms. There was a loud  _snap,_ brittle bone cracking out of place. Any human being would have screamed in pain at the mere sensation of the bone snapping like that, but the corpse didn't make a sound. It didn't acknowledge the pain like it should have done - was it even  _alive?_

 Rick stared at the thing in horror, shaking. His words incoherent as he tried to register what was happening right before his eyes. He couldn't look away, as much as he wanted too. His entire working career, he had been in situations that made his stomach churn, he had seen things that showed just how capable the human race were of creative cruelty onto their own species, but never had  seen something like  _this._

She - no,  _it -_ was dead.

 "Rick."

 The voice was so gentle, that he didn't even register that Cathrine was talking to him until he felt her hand brush against his shoulder. He jerked from her, making her retreat the advance to distract him from the corpse. The look on his face must have been a picture for her, the same she must have seen a hundred times over when the world realised that the corpse was a living, breathing thing. 

 Instead of giving him an explanation, instead of trying to calm him down as he stood there, trembling, near on the verge of a break down in fear, Cathrine mounted her bike. He could see it in her face, something about the creature on the floor was a reminder of something for her. He couldn't figure out what, his mind was all over the place to register that the attention she paid the corpse was that of apparent familiarity. 

 "We can't help her," said Cathrine.

 "W-wait -" he managed to breathe, but further words failed him; his mind racing a million miles an hour to comprehend what his eyes were seeing. 

 She snapped her fingers, drawing Rudolph's attention towards her. "We should go."

 With that, she pushed off on the bike, Rudolph quickly bounding along after the bike. Playfully, she nipped at the spinning wheels a couple of times, no longer sensing the creature to be a threat to her master the further they moved away from it. There was something in Cathrine's voice that told him there was much more danger around them than she had led him to believe upon their travel. 

 He realised then, why she was so nervous of the open. The corpse moving closer and closer nearby was merely legless, incapable of charging at them and showing him the reality of this world. A dreaded thought passed his mind at what those  _with_ legs were capable of. His stomach dropped, his insides twisted so hard that he had to step away from the bike just to hunch over and heave - 

 Just a few feet away, Rudolph yapped in his direction. She had looked back to see what he was doing, only to find that he wasn't following. Little did he know that the creature crawling closer to him, impossibly living and moving in it's condition, would kill him if it managed to get it's broken fingers into his flesh. The dog approached the wounded man, snorting at him as if he needed to realise this, but she didn't leave his side until Rick mounted the bike. 

 In his urge to get away, he didn't look back to see the corpse reaching out towards him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> - Days Gone Bye -   
> authors note | 01.06.2018
> 
>  Well, this rewrite has had a severe change to the actual chapter; not only is it shorter now, but I have decided to split the original content into two separate chapters, the next of which will be updated within the near future. I've really enjoyed exploring this chapter a little better from the original writing, I realise in the four years it's been sitting there in it's terrible state, collecting dust that I really didn't enjoy writing this chapter the first time around. 
> 
>  So here's the update. 
> 
> -the writer.


	7. Real

05.07.2018

 **chapter seven |** _real_

   The Grimes family home was not how she imagined it to look. When Rick saw his home, when he saw how dishevelled it looked by the events that had taken rapture to the world, he discarded the bike before he was even at the front steps of the house and stumbled to reach what he could only believe to be hope.

 "Lori?" he called.

 "Rick!" Cathrine hissed after him.

 "Carl!" the father roared.

 She imagined a larger home, with a more family-orientated feel to it, something that told her a loving household sat in the middle of this ghostly street and promised a happy ending for the officer. A swing-set in the front yard, the white picket fence - the whole American dream, but as she came to a stop, what she had standing before her was  _nothing_ like that. 

 Instead of that happy home feeling, she felt troubled. The foliage surrounding the building was overgrown. In the short few months that it had been abandoned, the house had lost colour, the greenery had dissolved; fallen leaves from the trees had littered across the concrete path leading to the small, family home were only now disturbed by the worried police officer limping his way into the home. 

 "Rick, wait -!" Cathrine called after him.

 Dismounting her bike and letting it drop to the ground, Cathrine got so far towards the house and then  _stopped._ As if there was a physical barrier between her and following the officer, she felt herself become trapped when her eyes set across the family home. Inside those walls were the memories of a man from before; everything he knew lived inside that house and all he hoped was the living things he sought would still be there. 

 The front door had opened too easily, had he not noticed that? Rick could not see what she had already observed from the outside alone. He didn't want to see it. Empty driveways were always the first signs that the neighbours had evacuated, encouraged to leave as quickly as possible when it became clear their town was no longer safe. Why would anybody endanger their family like that? 

 People had fled in their hundreds, all in the same direction to their death. What cars remained on the street were of those who had not made it out in time, those who had chosen to remain behind to protect their homes. Their doors were open and she assumed most were abandoned when they all piled into one vehicle to get away. The neighbourhood was empty, there were no living, visible people in sights -

 Wide open doors, homes that had been abandoned or ransacked in desperation. Those that remained closed had a secret, one that she was sure if opened, they would find horrendous displays that would be forever scared in memory. She looked down the street as she thought about homes like that, her attention on just one home almost identical to the one Rick had charged inside off. Ghosts haunted those walls, terrible moments of memory that would forever remain standing with the house. It was just a chilling reminder that the world took away  _hope._

 "Rudolph."

 Cathrine caught the beasts attention as she whimpered noisily, forcing the human to seize the barrel by the fur of her cheeks softly and steal all focus onto herself. It was an attempt to calm her down, the sizzling heat only disorientating the both of them with the tear between an old memory and the one happening right before them. This sense of duty forcing them back here to where all the bad things had happened -

 This neighbourhood was just as horrible of a past to the dog as it was to the human. Rudolph seemed agitated, looking in the same direction of familiarity as if something was calling to her until her human cleared her throat. She perched immediately on the concrete pathway leading towards the Grimes family home, uncertain. There was nothing down there that would make either of them feel any better. 

 "Stay here."  _Don't let anything into the house._ "Good girl."

 With gritted teeth, Cathrine worked her rucksack from her back and placed it into a small patch of overgrown grass just beside the cautious dog. The bag would just weigh her down if she came across any trouble inside and with her injury burning the flesh down and around the wound, she had little energy to fight with the added weight. Rick's muffled cries were only a continued relief that there was no danger inside -

 Nothing at all. 

 Pushing open the front door slowly, as not to alarm the man inside, the first sense Cathrine got from the surroundings was that it had been abandoned for a while. There was no damage to the front door, no claw marks down the wood or signs of breakages on the windows, although as she stepped further into the hallway, she could see that the walls were bare and there were a few things scattered over the floor, dishevelled from a hasty get away. 

  "Lori!" Rick screamed from upstairs. He was still searching, throwing open doors, begging for his wife and son to be hiding. "Carl!"

 He was not seeing what Cathrine was already aware off. The place had been stripped of all the things that said this place had once been a loving family home. Cupboard doors were thrown open and emptied of the things that could retain the memory of what once was. Her fingers drew along the walls of the hallway as she glanced into the rooms downstairs; there were no signs of life. 

 Dust had collected over the furniture for weeks - his family were gone. As if they had known that this house was not capable of protecting them from the threat outside, so they'd taken everything that mattered and what didn't and they'd left their beloved home in order to find that safe place that had been promised to them. Rick was only screaming at ghosts now.

 "Lori!" Charging down the stairs, Rick bolted past the living object in his way and into the kitchen, throwing open the pantry door. "Carl!"

 Cathrine followed him, leaning against the doorway like a frightened child hiding behind her mothers leg. Grey eyes watched a familiar scene in realisation that he was only just catching up to what the world had experienced weeks ago. Desperate family members running home to find that their beloved ones were missing or worse; he had no understanding as to why they would hide from him if they were still here. 

 How could someone tell him that they were gone? His wife and his son disappeared from the very home he thought they might barricade themselves in until he came home. How did she tell him that they were probably safe? All the evidence she had was weeks old. His home had not been ransacked by intruders, there were no signs of a struggle from the threat that indicated this house had been how his family had left it when they fled it's four walls for safety. 

 Rick could not possibly understand that in his state. He was already seeing an empty home, but no true signs that they had been hurt by the terror that uprooted everyday life and threw everybody into hell. He already saw the truth: they were not here. The pain of that realisation though had him hunting every nook and cranny for proof that his eyes were lying, because if they were not here,  _where were they?_

 Suddenly, the officer knocked past Cathrine into the hallway, tears in his eyes. The frantic rush of emotions had worn him out, as reality came to terms and he realised this horrendously empty house was void of anything that was or indicated his family had ever been here. It was just objects now, a few clothes scattered upstairs in a hasty pack, an empty room full of a child's toys and dreams -

 And everything inside of her just felt cold in that moment. Seeing him so broken stole her back to a moment she wanted to forget. The realisation that your family was gone from the home they should have been safe in was quite worse than actually watching them die before you. It was the emptiness of a home, barren of life that told you they were out in that world, far from your hands and there was nothing you could do about it. 

  There was a thud behind her, as the officer went to his knees in the hallway, sobbing pathetically. He hoped they would hear him, his desperate cries for them to come out of hiding and show themselves to him. He hoped they would see this broken, terrified man plead with the empty house for his family to be all right. Even now, as he mumbled their names over and over again under his breath, he knew they were not here. 

 Only Cathrine - only him.

 "Rick," she tried softly. The tears rolled down his cheeks, exhausted. "I'm so sorry . . ."

 Those blue eyes tore up to look at her when her words finally registered, with a raw, confused emotion that he had probably never felt before. Her own were on the floor as if ashamed by the arrow that had pierced through his hope, as if she was somehow responsible for the wake up call he had experienced just now. Why wasn't she comforting him? Had she known all along? He needed her to say something!

 "It's a dream," he finally whispered to himself. His fingers tapped the floorboards, drawn to that desperate idea that he might just be dreaming. "Am I here -?"

 "Rick," Cathrine started. 

 His tapping turned to a hard poking, "Am I really here?"

  "Stop," pressed his friend. 

 "Is this even  _real?"_

_No._

 It  _snapped_ and his cry was loud, anguished. Anybody looking at this broken man would see someone in a sense of loss that he didn't quite understand. He knew they weren't dead, but because they weren't there, they might as well be. His beloved family were gone and Rick just couldn't understand how it had come to this. All that made sense was that he was alone and he was  _scared._

 As he rocked on his knees, that anguish began turning into something else; anger burned through him at his minds betrayal and the only sensible thing he could do was act out. Rick's palm calm hard against his forehead as if it would correct all the wrong things his eyes were seeing. He wanted to wake up now. He wanted to see his wife and his child, he  _needed_ to hold them -

 Rick's palm continued to meet his aching skull, slap after slap until he felt nothing. Blue eyes peeled open when he realised that his muscles were straining to draw up his hand again. They widened when he saw what was stopping him. Pale fingers wrapped tightly around his wrist restrained the arm frown drawing up again, to stop him from hitting himself out of anger and pity. 

 The hold was tight, not enough to hold him down for long, but just enough until that desire to hurt himself burned away and left him nothing but the sobbing desire to collapse against his protector. His forehead fell against her shoulder as Cathrine clasped a supportive arm around his shoulder to calm him down. There was nothing more she could do but just kneel there and hold him. 

 "This isn't a dream." She spoke so softly, like a mother comforting her child. "I'm sorry, but it's not and they're not here. That  _doesn't_ mean they're dead, Rick."

 "Where are they?" he whispered pitifully. He wheezed desperately, trying to calm himself down as he grabbed her shirt, fingers clenching the fabric for understanding. "Where did they go?"

 "I don't know," she replied, "but we won't find them here."

 "They should have been here," said Rick. "W-why weren't they here?" 

 "It wasn't safe to stay here," replied Cathrine.

 All those weeks ago, the people of Kings County had been living a normal life, somewhat in fear of the news that unprovoked attacks of a new substance was causing people to attack friends and families. There were reports of hospitals being filled to the brim with casualties of unknown injuries and their cause. It was a scary few days leading up to the downfall of their beloved town, but it was still just the news. 

 In the early days of August, every man, woman and child woke up and went about their daily routine as was expected of them. Until schools were unexpectedly closed down and people were warned to stay in their homes, lock their doors and remain safe. Their country was suddenly in emergency status and nobody understood why - until the reason was knocking on their doors, attacking neighbours trying to flee from their homes. 

 Fear was a powerful motivator. Some of them had most likely stayed in their homes, waiting for the army to rescue them, waiting for this all to blow over. They had probably watched their friends and neighbours slow desert their homes for the better place. They had probably seen things that no human being should have to see and in a moment of fear, the remaining few left behind followed their predecessors out of the county. 

 Cathrine could not tell Rick what she did not know, but seeing the house, seeing how empty it was and how void of family-orientated objects within it's walls, she could only believe that his wife decided it was unsafe to stay here. She had taken their son as far away as possible. There was every chance that they were still alive, but he had to believe that. 

 Losing that hope so early on would only destroy him. 

 "They probably headed into the city," Cathrine added, "It was safe there I last heard."

 "The city," he mumbled in return. She leaned back as Rick broke away from her hold, looking at her with child-like eyes. "Is that where you were heading?"

 "I . . ." Cathrine leaned back on her haunches, greys distracted by the ground. "I was for a little while, but something came up. I don't know where I'm going anymore." She finally looked up at him, brows furrowed, "Why?"

 Rick rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth, "You just seem like you're looking for someone - just like I am." 

 "I was," she admitted quietly, "but I've not had any luck finding them."

 "I'm sorry," he murmured. 

 "It's probably better that they're dead anyway." He seemed a little surprised that she would be so blunt about it. "The thought that they've been out there this entire time . . . It terrifies me."

 "Do you think my family are -?"

 "Maybe," Cathrine corrected her earlier statement, "but if they're alive, you aren't going to find them sitting here, feeling sorry for yourself." He sat there, fumbling for the right words to say when she added, "I will help you as much as I can."

 ". . . Why?" he asked. 

 "Because what you just felt - I've felt it too -" She shrugged, "- and maybe you just need me."

 And maybe she just needed him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Days Gone Bye -
> 
> authors note | 05.07.2018
> 
> I know this is an incredibly short chapter, which is unlike me to write, but I needed to get this one out of the way and couldn't really do much more than what has been done with it. I still like the sense of it, though, and what's happened. I hope you enjoy this chapter. It's been a while since I've wanted to write something to do with Dead Girl Walking, since the news of Andrew Lincoln's wanted departure from The Walking Dead. 
> 
> -the writer


	8. Just A Little Further

_original posting date:_ 24.06.2013

**chapter eight |** _just a little further_

 In the few short hours that Rick had become consciously aware of this world, he had learned that time was something everybody needed. In order to come to come to terms with this new world, and what they had lost. There was always the chance that they were still alive, somewhere out there, living as best as they could, but there was always the chance that they were gone. 

 Those little things that were taken for granted were the first things that sprung back in his state, those random moments you would always think were the small things in life that made living something worthwhile, until you forgot about them. They were just the memories that spawned because the brain was trying to heal the trauma. It produced what hurt the most to make everything better. How protected life felt, how happy it was until it was ripped away from you -

 Cathrine rubbed her forearms as a chill passed over her, despite the heat. The sun glared down at her, following the steps she took to put distance between herself and the officer. He needed a few minutes to himself, to correct his mindset. He had to believe that they were alive in order to breathe calmly again and to do that, he needed to be alone. 

 Rick was in a world that didn't make sense, these memories of the world before were still fresh to him, so how could it have been stolen from him?  Waking in a fresh hell that didn't make any sense to him and now this. An empty house. No signs of life within the four walls he had put so much effort into keeping standing for a strong, happy home for his family. He needed these precious few moments to remember . . . in order to forget. 

 As the approached the second stairway, Rudolph snorted at her. 

 "Hey girl," she muttered to the patient beast, whose backside wiggled on the warm concrete. A shuffle that merely welcomed the company. "Any trouble?"

 Brown eyes blinked at her, jaw opened as if to show her white teeth. 

 With quick attention behind the ear, Cathrine pressed her other hand to her abdomen and perched herself beside her companion. "Really shitty start to the morning, huh?"

 Rudolph snorted. 

 "Yeah, I thought so too."

 The beast looked at her, before her browns turned towards the house, grunting. 

 "He needs a minute - it's only going to get worse, you know." Rudolph looked back and her nose nudged against Cathrine's cheek, greedily for attention. "Hey, hey - keep an ear out, Rud. Need to keep the coast clear."

 Those browns blinked at her, as if to say,  _it's his fault if they come._

"Hey," scolded the human, pushing down her muzzle. "He doesn't understand yet, but he will - and when he does, then everything will be all right."

  _Shouldn't you tell him about the monsters._

"Just a little further," she murmured, tilting her head back to soak in the suns rays. Gainsboro globes fell closed for a moment,  "he needs to pick himself up first."

  _That's not fair, Cathrine. He needs to know the truth -_

"And he also needs rest -" Cathrine interrupted. Her brow furrowed, a hand massaging her abdomen with a flinch . . . maybe it would help scare  _that_ monster away. "- And if you're here - so do I."

  Rudolph nudged her cheek gently again, forcing those gainsboro orbs to open -  _alone._

"Just a little further."

 Focus drifted around her as those words rolled from her lips uncertain, to ensure those intrusive voices wouldn't come back; the thumping sensation of pain through her stomach made her feel queasy, but it had worked - for now. Rudolph seemed to sense the unease in her human, shuffling closer as if to offer her protection from the world that would redeem it's chance to hurt her again. She couldn't let  _him_ in. 

 Drawn to the comforting beast, Cathrine rubbed her muzzle, "Just a little further."

 So how silly those words seemed to be right now to her, when she felt like further would just crumble her. Keeping the facade that she could take another step was now solely for the purpose of the broken man in the house behind her. These last few weeks had been challenging, her ordeal before was nothing compared to this new nightmare. She was the one taking care of the vulnerable now.

 Five minutes before he had screamed so broken for his family, Cathrine had been prepared to leave him in his home and be on her way. She had upheld her end of the bargain. She got him to his house and though it may not have been the picture he wished it to be, it could have been  _far_ worse. Just another block in the road of her own destination, a hurdle she had to climb over and the second her saviour had questioned his reality, Cathrine decided to stay. 

 Rudolph nudged her again. 

 "How you holding up, huh?" she asked the beast. "Not about to have a breakdown on me anytime soon, are you?"

 The dog perched her muzzle on her shoulder and gave a soft whine. 

 "Good," answered Cathrine. "One of us has to stay grief-bare."

 Those big, brown eyes looked at her, brows craned upwards with puppy eyes that gave a solid response: she was doing  _fine._ The little fact that her ears were sporadically shifting directions, picking up noises the human's fine ears could not detect or how her paws shuffled on the concrete in agitation, only meant that she was ready to leave this neighbourhood behind for good. 

 "Yeah, me too," said Cathrine, reaching up to stroke her muzzle. 

 Rudolph looked away, towards the house. 

 "Give him another minute - he'll come out when he's ready. Then we'll be going, okay?"

 She felt the breath of air puffed at her ear, but ignored it, deciding the beast just needed a little pampering to make her comfortable with the additional minutes. Rick needed to compose himself, he needed that time alone to figure out what his next plan of action was, because he was still lost in that moment of foggy haze when he had woken in an abandoned hospital, surrounded by death . . . and just one survivor.

 Down the street was a small little house that seemed to pop out of place; no matter how many times she tried to look past it, to see beyond it, her gaze was immediately drawn back to it as if something had changed. Her stomach rolled at the thought, because no matter how hard she looked, she couldn't see it. Was it the door; had it always been closed? Were the windows always like that? 

 "Where do you think he is now?" she muttered under her breath. 

 Rudolph shifted slightly, grunted. 

 "Do you think he made it?"

 Several days ago, Cathrine Calkins was stabbed through the abdomen protecting the one thing she never thought she would lose - the one thing he promised she would never lose. A huge part of herself ripped away again and thrown far beyond reach. Her head was a mess. It was why she could still hear him, why pain and fear brought him back to guide her, but he also made her remember such a raw, fresh memory -

 Cathrine could only remember so far back before she hit a block, everything before her captivity was non-existent. Faces were familiar, names had to be told to her again as if they were acquaintances but her past was completely blocked from her. Memories she was told were the greatest moments in her life were gone, static. Captivity had stolen that from her and then someone had given her the chance to be alive again. He had made everything make sense . . . 

 She survived, she started getting better - and then the shit hit the fan again. Her fingers fondled the chain around her throat, eyes drawn down to the warm concrete. It had been a mistake to rest, but exhaustion had gotten the better of her.  _Her fault._ Everything had led that horrid house to become such a burden on her thoughts. The pain agonising by the end of it, sadness had ruined her will to live - she had curled up in a corner to die alone. 

 Someone had broken in through the back door, an axe in hand and a small bag of supplies. He didn't have much to offer, he didn't really have any reason to help her, but he did. His new surroundings were shocking to see; a massacre, but no bodies to match the crime scene and a terrified, unconscious woman guarded by a large beast who at first, had growled at him. It had taken him almost an hour, but eventually, he was allowed to help. 

 Arnold Cambridge was an elderly gentleman who only had the next five minutes on his mind and she remembered the first thing he'd said,  _I'm dying. Cancer. I thought I could do my best before I'm at my worst and you looked like you needed help,_ to a woman who had just been through a life altering ordeal, who had just been a victim of a crime she thought she'd already escaped before and those were his first words when he was asked  _why?_

 Arnold had patched her up and pumped her full of mild antibiotics, the type you would find at home for a minor infection. For hours, it was a one way conversation, the elderly man trying to ease her nerves. He was telling her about his wife and his children, grown up and flown from the nest several years back. His eldest daughter had been about to have her first baby . . . and that brought him onto the knowledge of Cathrine Calkins. 

 He knew who she was. He made that very clear when he stopped talking about himself and distracted himself with his notebook, jotting notes down with shaky hands. Her face had been all over the news before the world went to shit. Everybody had some idea who she was, what she had been through and that she had made it through a nightmare no living being should ever have to endure.

 It was only Arnold that had realised she had been created for this world and maybe, that had frightened him. The understanding she was responsible for the blood - because she had been trained in a horrific way that almost made her as inhuman as the things that hunted them. He promised he would leave in the morning because he didn't want to be a burden to her, not in her condition and not after what she'd been through. Alone to him was better. Safer. 

 When Cathrine woke in the morning, Arnold was gone, but not in the way she thought he would leave. His supplies left behind, the front door open, Rudolph was guarding her - and a note that just read:  _Just a little further._ That note sat tucked in her rucksack to remind her that a man dying of cancer helped her in his last few hours. Her moment of need answered and now it was her turn to pay it forward - 

 "Cathrine?" a voice croaked out behind her. 

 Rick stood on his porch, a confused man in a hospital gown who should have woken up on this glorious day to startled nurses and doctors, ones who may have assumed that he would never wake from his coma. He should have been embraced by his terrified wife and his beloved son, pampered like he had risen from the dead. They would never leave his side until he was released from hospital.

 Recovery would have been slow, he still felt the pain down his left arm even now and he would be told how close to death he had been. He would have met Cathrine in a whole new light and eventually just been a man standing on his porch, overlooking a striving, busy neighbourhood praising his being, with a coffee in hand and a boy begging to take his bike to the park. His wife would wrap her arms around him, kiss his cheek, tell him dinner was in the oven -

 Instead, Rick stood there alone. Overgrown grass and empty, barren streets his only company in a moment of misery. The only person who could make sense of it was sat on his porch steps, under the guard of the brown-eyed beast who had brought him to safety. He felt as if he should have something in his hands which were now at his sides, twisting into the cotton of his hospital gown. Nervous. 

 Cathrine looked peaceful there, lost in thought. This world had created something out of her he didn't quite understand. From the frightened mouse crawling from the wreckage of a car to this  _creature_ of survival, someone he knew he had to trust in order to understand. She knew what was out there, perched on the edge of his home as if protecting it -  _him_ from the monsters beyond -

 Hooking her chin over her shoulder, Cathrine smiled, "Feeling better?" 

 "Yes," he looked away from her. 

_He's lying._

 "You?"

 "I'm good." 

_And now you're lying._

_**Shut up.**_

 The flinch was mental, like someone had slapped her across the face, but despite the way she clenched her teeth, everything seemed almost normal. At least as long as Rick had not seen the physical reaction. Cathrine dropped her head to adjust the mounting frustration growing in her gaze and pushed herself to her feet, pressing a supportive hand to her abdomen to ease the numbing tingles pulsating through her skin. 

 Everything hurt, but she couldn't let Rick know that, "We should find somewhere to rest for the night. It's not safe to wander about."

 "We could stay here for the night," he indicated his home, the greatest safety net he had right now. 

 Cathrine took one look at the house and shook her head, "Too many windows."

  _What a poor excuse._

 "I know a place not far from here," she continued, reaching to grab her rucksack from the overgrown lawn, "We can rest there for the night." She pointed in the direction they had to head with certainty in her gaze. "Just a little further. That way." _  
_

"And then -?"

 "Then we try to find your family," said Cathrine. "Best place to start that would be at a friends house - family nearby? They could be there."

  _Liar._

 "First, we should change your bandage so you can get into some actual clothes," she said tightly, hand clenching the strap of the rucksack. "You can't keep walking around like that."

 When she pointed at him, he didn't notice the tremble of the digit indicating his wounded chest and perhaps he should have. Instead, Rick hesitantly brushed the pads of his fingers over the grimy cotton and winced. He hadn't noticed the smell until now, a sour burn to his nostrils as he pressed against the healing wound. It wasn't infected, but it was clear now that the bandage had been applied for some time now. 

 The buzz of nerves tortured by the ripped, healing skin made him tingle uncomfortably. If she could see that he was hurting both mentally and physically, she would know the stress of the day had worn him beyond the point of arguing. He had seen her doctor skills put to the test back in the hospital and even in half form, he knew she was the better person to tend to his wound before he had some kind of reaction. 

 Cathrine was right, though. Out there, his family were waiting for him. He didn't know how he knew, but something told him he had to believe it. There were local people who would have offered help to his wife and child out of the neighbourhood, his best friend - Rick's blues looked down to the wound, touching it gingerly; the only face he had seen before he had truly woken in this barren world. Was he even still alive? 

 Rudolph's whimper broke through the raging flood of voices in his head. The possibility that they were still alive, somewhere beyond the boarders of his home town, guarded by his best friend - another sharp whimper distracted him, sounding rowdy that she had to sit there for so long as the humans conversed their next plan of action. It didn't matter to her where they were going, Rick had figured that out by now, she was just guarding them on their course. 

 Another bark, far more frantic than the previous drew his attention. He looked up to see that she was alone, dancing on the concrete as if it was suddenly too hot for her paws. Her nose nuzzling against something in agitation down the steps. Her body wiggled uncertainty as she voiced a desperate whimper for attention and just as Rick's brows furrowed to ask what she was doing, he noticed that Cathrine was no longer in sights. 

 And then Rudolph barked, a far more frantic bark that sounded more concerned than a yip at them to get moving. He looked up to see that she was alone, dancing on the concrete in agitation as her nose nuzzled something down the sets. Her barrelled ass wiggled in uncertainty as she nudged what had attracted her attention. It was only then that he noticed Cathrine was no longer in sights.

 "Cathrine?" he asked cautiously. 

 Rudolph whimpered again, head swivelling around to look at him. 

 "Cathrine?" He found his feet were already carrying him down the pathway, hand pressed to the grimy bandage in worry. "Cathrine!"

 The closer he came to the scene, the quicker he came to realise why the beast was whining; the drop from the steps was not that far, but when someone had no control over where they were going to land, because their body seized up on them, it would feel like gravity had decided they belonged on the ground. Sprawled on the warm concrete, like something that had fallen from the sky, was Cathrine - unconscious.

 Rick was by her side in an instant, pushing the dog out of the way in order to step over her body without stepping on her. The angle she had fallen looked as if she had lost her balance, but aside from the ghostly touches to her abdomen their entire walk to Kings County, and perhaps a little less colour to her cheeks than even an officer would have liked, Cathrine had seemed to be in perfect health.

 "Cathrine," he mumbled, "Hey, Cathrine. Talk to me - what's wrong?" 

 He tapped her cheeks lightly, hoping the little spikes of pain might wake her up. When there was no response, he angled her head towards the sky, knowing better than to immediately move her when he didn't knock if she had injured herself in the fall. His fingers sought a pulse in her throat, touching with a desperation to find one. It took a couple of attempts to remember the anatomy, but he found one - thready, but alive. 

 "Hey. You need to wake up, Cathrine -"

 Rick didn't realise he was panicking, not even when his eyes glanced over the gaping, blood wound to her forehead, leaving a puddle of crimson just beside his knees. Carefully, he turned her head, watching blood trail down into the mess of braided, brunette strands, colouring that pale complexion. It was like a something snapped inside him, an awareness that he couldn't just let it freely bleed while he judged himself on what to do. 

 Nearby, the rucksack that he had watched her pack at the hospital was sprawled over the steps, and immediately, Rick remembered exactly what she had been packing at the time. He snatched hold of the handle with a bloody hand, yanking the bag towards him. Cathrine had medical supplies shoved to the bottom of the bag, things she had used to patch up the injury she vaguely spoke about, so somewhere in the rucksack were the supplies he needed to help - 

 He hoped. And that was when he realised: he suddenly had no idea what he was doing. He didn't know what to do in this situation. She was breathing. Her heart was still beating, but there were no immediate signs of  _why_ she had collapsed and perhaps, that panicked him further. He knew he had to stop the bleeding to her forehead before he could check for any other injuries. 

 It was from the corner of his eye that he noticed that Rudolph leaning forward to nudge Cathrine's face. With some courage, he brushed her muzzle away quickly, "It's okay. I promise, she's going to be okay."

 What was he even talking about? He was no doctor. He didn't know that. He just realised he had to say it, because she was the only one around him that even made a lick of sense, despite not telling him everything. Rick grabbed a patch-bandage first, tearing the protective seal from it to press against her forehead as he looked up and around. He just had to stop the bleeding first, compression on the wound until he could call for help -

  _Help._ He had to get help. He couldn't do this on his own, his own muscles still felt as if they were waking up and Rick knew he would not be able to carry Cathrine inside by himself. His mind returned momentarily to those days the neighbours would come charging outside when a body hit the floor to try and help, or see who it was that had collapsed. 

 Rick almost  _expected_ to everybody peeping through their windows, crowds beginning to gather around him on the phone to the nearest paramedics who could provide help. Although this neighbourhood was rather crime-free, it came with the novelty acts of the argumentative kind, those who brought their domestic disturbances onto the street, and  _everybody_ was nosy about those matters. 

 When he looked up for those people, he was distraught to see only one person nearby - someone who seemed to have not even seen them yet.  A man stumbled out onto the street, his shadowed figure seemingly too lose and unaware to have noticed that they were nearby in their hour of need. The sun shadowed out most of his features, making it hard to determine whether he was drunk or just blind. 

 The way he walked suggested one or the other, because he hit one of the cars nearby, just bouncing off the side that diverted him on a new course towards them, yet it still seemed as if he had not seen them. Without realising, Rick had raised his free arm into the air, waving at him frantically, unaware that Rudolph lowered herself, heckles raised and her teeth flickering in and out of existence as the man stumbled closer.

 "Help!" he cried to the man. "I need help!" It seemed to stimulate the drunken man, the sound of the panicked officers voice drawing him directly towards them. He turned back to Cathrine, breathing heavily in relief, "It's okay - help is coming. You're going to be alright -"

 Rick knew there were leaves all over the ground, fallen from the dying tree in his front yard. He had been meaning to cut it down over the summer and uproot it to save any other foliage around it from dying too; the accident happened and the tree remained standing, bleeding it's rot into the ground to feed the greenery around it. There were plenty of the crusted, dried leaves surrounding him, undisturbed on the hot August evening - 

 Until then. 

 They crackled underneath the heavy foot of another body, and Rick turned from the woman he cradled to look behind him in the hope that help had come quicker from nearby. The nagging sensation in the back of his mind reminded him that what was around him was reality, that there should be  _nobody_ here. Instead, what he was now looking at was a boy, no older than twelve standing hesitantly behind him with a look that spoke undoubted fear. 

 "He -"

 The metal shovel face came out of nowhere. He didn't even realise the boy had one in his hands until he felt the collision against his face, practically knocking him back onto the concrete himself. Blood spurted from his nose and his whole face was suddenly numb to the warm sensation of the sun caressing his flesh, even the feel of his fingertips reaching to touch his sore nose in uncertainty were accidentally pushed harder into his face than he'd wanted too. 

 The pain blinded him as he lay there, dazed, " . . . Carl . . . ?"

 "Daddy!" the boy screamed. His brow furrowed, terrified of the man he had knocked back, "I got the sum a bitch! I'm gonna smack him dead."

 The officer turned his head uncertainly, like a curious pup who had heard a noise he didn't quite understand. The boy above him was blurred, a motion of colour bouncing from one foot to the other and gripping tight to his weapon. He could vaguely hear the boy yelling for someone, or at someone. The jittery dance of a terrified child had the officer realising that there were things out here, things that had this poor boy on edge and believing  _he_ was one of those things.

It was then Rick noticed the boy was no longer looking at him. Something else had his attention, something had him fearfully swivelling his hands around the neck of the shovel. His head fell lifelessly the other way as a harsher daze began to cloud his vision. He could just make out how close the stranger had stumbled towards them. His pace had increased, as if suddenly clear headed to the threat of life ahead of him. 

 Rick tried to find his voice, anything past the startled gargle of a man who had been hit in the face with a shovel, but his words were caught in his throat. What part of his brain remained conscious realised from the tip of his vision, he could see another figure, slightly taller than the man it marched towards the straggler. His presence had not been noticed . . . at least not until a deafening  _bang_ showered the neighbourhood with noise; the stragglers body collapsed and Rick's mind shut down.

  ** _Carl._**

 He couldn't properly process what was happening until seconds had flashed by and he peeled his eyes open to find a gun in his face. "Did he say something?"

 The boy opened his mouth to say  _yes,_ but he couldn't seem to do it. 

 "I thought I heard him say something," pressed the elder man. His eyes wild between his son and the stranger on the floor. "Did he say something?"

 "He called me Carl," the boy stammered, gripping the shovel closer to his chest. 

 "Son, you know they can't talk -" started the elder. 

 "He was going to  _eat_ her," the boy pressed defensively. 

 Rick blinked.  _Eat her?_  

 No. He was trying to help her - she needed their help. His mouth parted to ask for it, but by the time his darkening vision had registered that the man was gone by the time he looked up. He felt the brush of air around his head, as if someone was sweeping past quickly, the kicking of leaves in all directions until the crackle was closer to his companion that he would have liked.

 Vaguely, he could hear Rudolph whimpering. The large body was recognisable beside the man, her actions that of an animal who had recognised the scent of the stranger and reacted like they were good friends. The beast lay beside her companion, still trying to get the attention she thought she needed to make her friend feel better. If Rick could have seen it clearly, it would have come across as a pitiful sight. 

 The dots, however, didn't connect. He didn't realise that the beast had reacted to this man in a different way than she had to him when they'd met not too long ago. She recognised him and that meant Cathrine did too. The only person who could sort this out was cradled in the arms of a man compressing the bloodied bandage to her forehead to try and stop the profuse bleeding from her skull. 

 "I-Is she okay?" the boy whimpered. 

 Under his breath, the man whispered, "I told her not to go by herself." His head turned, dark eyes on Rick, "Hey, mister - hey! Tell me what happened."

 "Daddy -"

 "Shit - hey, stay with me -" the man ordered. 

 Rick didn't even realise his head was dazedly half up from the floor, trying to "see" better as his vision dwindled. He had felt pain before, he had lost consciousness before, but this was a new, terrifying experience he didn't quite understand. His world was going dark, drawing in the curtains like in the old movies when the film would end and a dark nothing would swallow the screen titles until there was nothing left. 

 At least, until his head hit the floor, Rick realised he was losing consciousness. The sky above him was so blue, clouds rolling across the sky as the upper atmosphere's wind blew it across the way. It looked almost peaceful and perhaps it was better this way, perhaps he just needed that momentary comfort to get out of this world. Maybe when he opened his eyes again, the world would be as it should -

 So by the time the stranger had reached him, Rick had already drifted away.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Days Gone Bye -   
> authors note | 12.07.2018
> 
> You know, back when I wrote this chapter, I never really liked how I'd written the previous one, and now I am so much more in love with this completely revisited version. It just feels more entwined with the characters and their personalities and the mystery behind who Cathrine Calkin's really is. I even stated the very first time I wrote this chapter that I wasn't happy with how it'd gone. And when this chapter was first out, the story was only on 1k reads. Look at it today - and that's all because of you guys. Thank you so much.


	9. Stranger, Danger

_originally published:_ 04.07.2013

**chapter nine |** _stranger, danger_

 The ground beneath him was soft. He could no longer feel the gravel digging into his back or the exposure to the heat that the stones had absorbed throughout the hot evening day. His nose was bloody and mouth filling with an irony substance - and then there was nothing. His throat felt dry, the bewildering feeling of comfort had him at a loss and he knew he had to be afraid. 

 There was a patter of heavy feet against wooden floorboards nearby, drawing him further to consciousness. The boards creaked beneath the weight and as if nervous by the sudden sound, the creator of the noise paused momentarily, waiting for the repercussions. When nothing happened, the body continued to move until Rick felt the caress of cold, padded fingers against his stomach, pressing something firm over his flesh. 

 Playing dead, Rick lay there until the weight shuffled away from him, lumbering as if impatient to see whether or not he would wake. Did he dare open his eyes? Especially when the last thing playing on his mind was the kiss of metal against his face before the world was dark and jumbled words rattled his skull. He could only imagine what kind of man would linger until their victim was alive again, breathing in the world of consciousness in this confusing world. 

 Rick's fingers itched, the skin prickled as if the muscles were working hard to remember how to bend and stretch with life. He was pretty sure he was moving his fingers, but it hadn't occurred to him yet to bring them to his face and touch the soreness of his nose, which now irritated. He had to chance it, he had to see his situation and understand what was going on, because everything was a blur and he was afraid. 

 Blue eyes peeled open to peep at his surroundings, unaware that the trickle of water he could hear nearby was the sound of company still in the room with him. The numbness of his hands forgotten, Rick looked just long enough to notice why he felt insecure. What he saw was not sky or cloud or even the rooftops of the houses across the street, but a wall, cast in the flickering light of few candles in the room. 

 He felt smothers in a rising panic that urged his sleepy mind to realise he was possibly in danger, far more in here than out  _there._ For if there was one thing Rick Grimes knew, it was the walls of his home, the colours his indecisive wife had spent hours redecorating over and over again until finally settling on the first shade. Spring was a maddening time of the year, when her creative self decided to redo the hallways and living room.

 Lori had always hated the idea of wallpaper. She hated the idea that it could fray or mould if there was water damage. With a child in the house, just as creative as his mother, she worried about the devastation he would cause with his crayons when unsupervised. After the lipstick catastrophe, husband and wife had finally decided together that paint was not only easier, but a lifesaver to a child determined to leave his art on the walls. 

 Now that he looked at the walls of the room he was in, he realised they were smothered in wallpaper. The windows that he should have been able to look out were boarded up with splintered planks, long drapes of duvets and blankets pinned against the wood works to hide the inside world from the out. 

 This was not his house. 

 "I got that bandage changed out." 

 The voice came from nearby, a man who had caught the first signs of life from the officer before his eyes had opened.

 "It was pretty rank. Any longer and you could have got an infection. What was it?"

 The appreciation for an immediate answer was not lost on Rick, especially when those blue eyes turns upon his company with uncertainty. He observed a far different man to the one he remembered holding a gun to his face. There was a curiosity in his gaze, not fear, as if he knew something Rick did not. 

 As he rung out a dirty rag into the bowl of water, they stared at each other for what seemed like a lifetime, both wanting answers - and only one of them afraid to ask. "Your wound," the man pressed, when Rick failed to provide an answer in what he considered a reasonable time. "What was it?"

 "Was?" rasped the officer. 

 "It's healed mostly," admitted the man. He threw the cloth into the bowl, "Though with the state of those bandages, I'm unsure how you starved off an infection." Their eyes met again. "It certainly hasn't been tended too properly."

 "Oh," was all Rick could manage. 

 "What's the wound?" "Gunshot," Rick croaked. 

 "Gunshot?" he asked. Rick could hear his voice dripping with disbelief as he paused, before raising an eyebrow, "What else?"

  _What else?_ He opened his mouth to respond, but his voice was stolen when the floorboards groaned beside him, alerting him to another presence unnoticed until now. Rick looked to the doorway, where a much smaller being stood with the familiar look of panic on his face while nervous hands strangled a baseball bat. He swayed slightly in agitation, a uneasiness that made the officer too afraid to answer right away. 

 Rick was trained for these types of situations, however, and he knew that a simple show of surrender might not be a terrible idea. He moved his arms in an attempt to spread them wide and palms up, an act of submission thwarted by a sharp pain running down his forearms. He looked to see that both wrists were zip-tied to the bed frame, suspending any action further than a few millimetres away from the headboard. 

"Anything else?" the man asked calmly. 

 "Gunshot ain't enough?" 

 As much as Rick regretted those words, he wanted the man to know that he was vulnerable and afraid. There was not a second passing by that the officer, while tied to a bed and pretty much naked, wished he had a better answer for the stranger. He did not recognise the man from this neighbourhood and Rick knew  _everybody_  in his part of town. He was the hostage of a man who looked displeased with an answer, capable of anything while the officer was incapacitated. 

 The move was sudden, and the man was leaning over Rick in a blink, as if to reassure the officer that he was in complete control of the situation. The look in his dark eyes told him that he would do the worst things imaginable to ensure the safety of himself and the boy in order to survive whatever hell had reigned down on this Earth. Rick felt his lungs begin to burn for air as he held his breath, feeling the burn of his captors glare tear through him as the authority was established in the room. 

 "Look," he finally said, "I ask and you answer. It's common courtesy, right?"

 Rick nodded. 

 "Did you get  _bit?"_

 "Bit?" he replied. 

 "Bit. Chewed - maybe scratched?" the stranger inclined his head, deadly serious. "Anything like that?"

 "No," Rick affirmed, "I got  _shot."_

 "Just shot?"

  "As far as I know." He looked at the stranger with undeniable certainty. "Ask my friend, she'll tell you."

 Everything went quiet. Even the boy stopped his swaying and turned his head ever so slightly as if to look over his shoulder. There were monsters in this world, and yet, he hoped to see something in the hallway; there was almost disappointment on his face when he realised that nothing was there. Young fingers twisted uncertainly on the baseball bat, knowing that a single indication from the adult would cause him to swing -

 The seconds felt like minutes as the silence crept in, drawing an eerie quiet Rick was only used too when his wife finally threw in the mittens, hushing her one-way yelling match to see if her husband would fight back. The troubling news would follow, he was certain of it because when his companion didn't make a noise, when she didn't raise her voice to provide the officer with the comfort that she was  _alive,_ he realised she was not even in the room. 

 "Where is she?" Rick lost his fear, turning his gaze onto those dark eyes, calculating how to handle a delicate situation. "Is she okay?"

 "She's in the other room," the stranger indicated to the doorway across the hall. 

 "Is she okay?" pressed Rick. 

 The stranger straightened his back slightly, "She's resting." He cleared his throat. "I'm no doctor, but I've done what I could."

 "What's wrong with her?" he asked, looking once again towards the hallway. 

 "The likely answer is that her wound was infected," said the stranger. He indicated Cathrine's bag nearby, the one she was shoving medical supplies into back at the hospital. "I've given her some antibiotics, but she has not come around yet."

 "Thank you," the officer mumbled, relieved. 

 "You her husband?" he came right out with it. 

 "No." Rick looked at him as if he had grown a second head, though weary to answer. "We're just friends." He wouldn't exactly call them friends. "She's ... helping me."

 The universe threw them both together once again as if to say  _introduce yourselves,_ and once again, she was missing when he opened his eyes. He felt almost certain the stranger was telling him the truth; Cathrine was in the room across the hall, fighting off an infection. There was an instinct to survive in her that drove over the warning to rest and heal. Months in captivity would do that to anybody and Rick only knew a little of her story, despite being international news.

 Movement caught his eye as the stranger reached out a hand to touch him. Instincts had followed the officer through many horrible days fighting the criminals of his county, so when he pulled away, the strangers palms went flat up in a show of surrender, that he meant no harm to his captive. There was something in his eyes that told Rick he had to trust him, because whether he liked it or not, the situation was completely in his hands. 

 "Easy," the stranger cooed. "Just let me." 

 Rick watched his moving hand reach up towards his forehead, feeling the cool press of his damp fingers against the skin, dabbing along the flesh as one would expect a parent to do to a child when checking for a temperature. Although Rick felt uneasy and warmer than usual, when the stranger pulled back, he looked almost relieved. 

 "Cooler now," he confirmed. "Your fever's going down, else it would have killed you by now."

 "Didn't think I had one," mumbled the officer. 

 "Be hard to miss," said the stranger, "and we certainly wouldn't be taking if you had it, but that doesn't mean we're on the same page."

 When the man leaned back, his hands shuffled down to his pockets, where he slipped both hands inside and rummaged around, as if he couldn't remember where he put what he was looking for. Rick tensed, uneasy. Everything was happening too fast and his mind was struggling to gulp in everything he could in order to make this as easy on them as he possibly could. He was certainly in no condition to fight, yet the air was still incredibly hostile. 

 Something silver glinted off the naked flames of the candles in the room, drawing his eye and as if being captive to a man who had made as much sense as Cathrine was not enough, the glare of the flip blade now pointing right at him in warning was enough to make Rick pause. The blade was sharp and thin, something that could cause a lot of damage if the man knew the right place to stick it. 

 "Take a look at this," the stranger said, once more leaning over the officer with the blade in perfect view. "Look at how sharp it is."

 The stranger gave him a few moments to register that the knife was inches from his cheek and no matter how far he pushed his head back into the pillow, Rick could feel it's sharp caress threaten to cut open his check if the man moved any closer. He held his breath, bravely looking at his captor as the man asserted his dominance. 

 For any number of reasons, he was more afraid of what was beyond the DIY curtains up against the windows than he was of the stranger tied to the bed. Rick had to understand that this man was also a father, doing what he could to protect his young boy in the company of a man he did not know if he could trust. This was his house - his rules. He didn't need the blade to make Rick understand that.

 "Try anything," the threat continued, "and I will not hesitate, do you understand?" When Rick did not immediately answer, he leaned in, "Don't think I won't do it either."

 Letting out an unsteady breath, Rick managed a short nod, complying with the rules. Until he was at full strength, he was useless to fight either of them. He had little understanding of what had put what once seemed like a rational man into this position. He didn't seem the type to hold a stranger hostage and teach his child to hit a random person in the face with a shovel, but then Rick's mind carried back to the limping man on the street ... and the bullet in his head from the gun his captor had fired. 

 As his thoughts carried him, the stranger reached the knife up to the plastics cutting into his wrists and snapped them free, allowing Rick to hesitantly draw his arms towards his chest and adjust himself just enough for comfort. Fingers alternated between caressing the bruises of his wrists, wincing. His captor watched before dragging himself away from the bed and while stepping around the frame, he looked at the officer. 

 "My boy and I will be downstairs," he said. "You should get some rest."

 "What about Cathrine?" asked Rick. 

 "I'll be checking on her in a short while," the stranger replied. "For now, you should focus on yourself."

 "I need to see her," he persisted. 

 "Look, my friend - I understand your worry. I'm a strange man in a strange house and we ain't go no trust, but," the stranger stood by the door and shooed the boy out of the room, indicating the door across the hallway once again, "she is resting in there and I ain't carrying you."

 "I can walk," the officer promised. 

 The stranger managed a smile, in disbelief, "The best thing you  _can_ do is get some rest. Come out when you're able too."

 Drawing the door to a partial close behind him, Rick was left alone in a strangers room, filled with very few candles to light the area. There were no picture frames on the walls or any indications whether this house belonged to his captor or not. It was cold and empty, save for one man who truly had no idea what was going on anymore. 

 He only knew that his palms tingled from the flow of blood into his hands and he was weary, growing tired the longer he thought about flopping out of the bed and crawling across the hallway to ensure Cathrine was truly in that room. He had to trust that the stranger was telling him the truth. He had his boy to protect, after all and no man would risk their child with a lie in the company of a stranger. 

 Rick eyed the distance from the bed to the  door and suddenly felt heavy. His body was far too exhausted from the rush of the day that instead of moving, he simply curled up onto his side in a fetal position and took in a deep breath. For now, he had no other choice but to do what had been asked of him. The longer his head rested on the pillow, the harder it became for him to keep his eyes open and focused. 

 Within a few moments of being alone, Rick fell back into a world of darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> authors note | 28.01.2019
> 
> This chapter has been in a long time editing mode. Since probably about August last year, which would have been completed, but as you get older and responsibilities weight you down, you find your brain struggles to comprehend the "Let's WRITE" mode a writer is usually hardwired with at birth. Probably one of the hardest rewrites I've had to do as well, but recently I've been dying to get on with this series and at least try to finish season 1.  Enjoy!

**Author's Note:**

> - DAYS GONE BYE -  
> Authors Note | 13.05.2018
> 
> I'm new to this, but this work is being copied over from Wattpad, from Nonja18 (my account). This is the edited chapter. I usually put the date I post the chapter up in the corner, hence why I added [original posting date] in place. I have taken great pride in this work for the longest of times and I really hope to continue that here. I thought maybe fresh ground will help me get back into the funk of bunking down and getting on with the story! And I'm new here, so bare with me while I get my barings. 
> 
> -the writer.


End file.
